Literally...

I have a pet peeve that many people in my family are well aware of. I dislike when people use "literally" wrong. It is supposed to be used with common phrases such as if one were to see a robin at 5am pulling a worm out of the ground then one could say "Look at that! An early bird is literally 'catching the worm.'" Although at 5am, it's really best to say nothing... Or if one MUST speak then certainly voicing witticisms of the English language are not the way to go. Best to stick with "I made you coffee." And stop talking :-)

How one DOESN'T use "literally" would be a sentence such as "I literally died laughing." No, you did not literally die. You are here, living, and telling me this story. So it is an unfortunate phrase to say someone died laughing at all...



But unless they actually perished, like the guy above (Princess Bride), it did not happen LITERALLY. I hate that phrase anyway... died laughing.  Just stop saying it, literally or not.  It's dark.

Another way it is bothersome is when someone uses "literally" in a sentence when there is no common phrase at all... Such as "I literally got up and left." Nope. That is not a common phrase. You know "get out of town" "give me a break".... Something like that.

So imagine my delight this past summer when my little five year old is working really hard to get his bike up a hill at the beach and he says "Oh! My legs are killing me!" And then he says "Well.... Not literally!!" Love him!

Then just this morning my now 6 year old has been asked to turn off his video game to see a special New Years show. He says "Can we just watch it for a second?" To which I replied "yes". He said "I mean literally... 1 second!!" Way to go little dude!