'As is often the case, though, such "abuses" have a long and esteemed history in English. The ground was not especially sticky in Little Women when Louisa May Alcott wrote that "the land literally flowed with milk and honey," nor was Tom Sawyer turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as "literally rolling in wealth," [...more...] Such examples are easily come by, even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate.'
Given the caliber of authors that have used "literally" for emphasis, I have a hard time standing behind the concept that it's even poor style. We can decide that, moving forward, we'd like to clean up English and use "literally" differently, but calling it a mistake rather than a offense to modern style is inaccurate.
REGARDLESS, I thought this was exactly the kind of thread that Hacker News hated. :|
Comments
If it's a "mistake", then it's one that has been made for 300 years:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the...
Relevant excerpt:
'As is often the case, though, such "abuses" have a long and esteemed history in English. The ground was not especially sticky in Little Women when Louisa May Alcott wrote that "the land literally flowed with milk and honey," nor was Tom Sawyer turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as "literally rolling in wealth," [...more...] Such examples are easily come by, even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate.'
Given the caliber of authors that have used "literally" for emphasis, I have a hard time standing behind the concept that it's even poor style. We can decide that, moving forward, we'd like to clean up English and use "literally" differently, but calling it a mistake rather than a offense to modern style is inaccurate.
REGARDLESS, I thought this was exactly the kind of thread that Hacker News hated. :|