July 25, 2008
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Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say
I came home Wednesday night to a note stuck to my door from one of my neighbors. Apparently Ginger barks quite a bit when I leave, and she's hearable from the parking lot (that part I knew about). Unfortunately, my desire to be neighborly has been tempered by the fact that my neighbor is probably an idiot.
Y'see, the note said that my dog "literally barks for hours" when I leave. Now, I know that she barks, but I seriously doubt that she barks for hours, or even an hour. Though I'd be willing to be proven wrong.
It's an unfortunate effect of people hearing words and not thinking about what they mean. And more unfortunately the practice is widespread. People being people, they're sometimes prone to hyperbole and exaggeration. So if someone tells you "your dog barked for hours" you'd think they were doing it for effect -- it barked for a noticeably long time, and it was annoying.
So, you add the word "literally" to mean that you aren't exaggerating: You wish your words to be taken literally. There is no embellishing; you mean exactly what you're saying. People take this lack of exaggeration seriously -- if a usually hyperbolic statement is actually true as spoken that's a big thing.
But stupid people noticed this, and decided "literally," instead of meaning what it sounds like it means, is a modifier like "big-ass." So you get ridiculousness like, "he was literally green with envy." It gotten to the point that, barring other evidence, I assume anyone using "literally" is probably dumber than driveway gravel.
I figure the dog barks for half an hour, 45 minutes tops. I still need to fix it of course, but now I'm fixing it for my retard neighbor instead of my intelligent neighbor.
Edit, 7/25, 6:52 PM: If this looks more like a draft that usual, that's because it is. I meant to come back to his one later, before it went live. Oops. Oh well, might as well add that for the last two days I've left the TV on while I was out, and no more nastygrams on the door. I guess that means it's working.
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