Airstrip One

Literally speaking

I'm going to get on to my mail box, and my book reviews soon, I promise. Any way today I'll have a general go about sloppiness. I was reading today a missive from a salesman saying that he had "been literally torn apart" at some meeting with a potential client. Now literally to me means that the metaphor button is switched off (not literally as there is no such thing as a metaphor button). If you were literally torn apart you would have at least a couple of limbs missing, and e-mail would be problematic. It seems to mean "I'm not exageratting, it was really bad". Fine, but don't use that word.

Any way a couple of years ago I got an e-mail from someone responding to my reporting a particular Blair violation of our liberties, saying that "my blood is literally boiling". That must be painful.

The literally peerless Sean Gabb writes an excellent piece on the close correalation of mixed metaphors and sloppy thinking here.

One day I'll talk about my brush with fundamentalism, and why it's so important for the word literal to retain its proper meaning. I'll also write about foreign policy some time.

PS. I hate postscripts as well. In this age of word processors you don't need them. I mean I don't want to get all Ayn Rand on you people, but post scripts were all well and good in an age when you couldn't go back to your written or type-written letter and insert a short paragraph. It just showed a disorganised mind. Now you can edit things once you've written them. Postscripts are no longer a sign of a sloppy mind but of an insincere nature.

An endorsement

It's from The Raimondo;

Oh, and I did indeed look at your weblog and have been reading it since a Eric put it up. It hits just the right tone of informality, and is very valuable. I'm sure it's going to be popular with our readers, and expand the audience for your column.

See, now you'd better tell all your friends. That's five people who read the web log.