Literally Watch!

A great (and correct!) use of the word is found in a Washington Post story this morning:

D.C. firefighters from Rescue Squad One faced a monumental rescue problem Thursday evening...literally.

The reason it is correct?  They had to rescue the people from the elevator of the Washington Monument.



[Literally Watch is a public service of this blog, our effort to point out the correct --and incorrect-- use of the word. Many people use literally when they should use figuratively]

Literally Watch!

     I'm proud to say it is none other than Steve Flowers, columnist and CBS-8 political commentator, who presents an excellent correct example of using the word literally.

      In his latest column, he writes about the re-establishment of the Iron Bowl in 1948 after a decades long break:



      The contract was drawn up, papers were signed, and the rivals literally buried the hatchet. On the morning of December 4, 1948, the president of each school’s student body dug a hole at Birmingham’s Woodrow Wilson Park, tossed a hatchet in and buried it.



     "Literally" is one of the most misused words in the language, and this blog is on a mission to point out the correct and incorrect use when it appears in public.



[Thanks to our eagle eyed senior editor J.C. for spotting this example!]

Literally Watch!!!!!

     I has been so long since I last issued a "Literally Watch" that I've forgotten if I used a particular format with it. For those who have never seen one, Literally Watch is a Public Service of this blog, alerting readers to the fact that we have found another person--in public--misusing the word literally.

     In this case it was a certain news anchor with a last name that starts with a "P" who works in TV News in Montgomery, but not at WAKA.

     In a story about medical bills, she said:



"SOME PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY DROWNING IN DEBT"



   If I had any artistic talent, I would draw a picture of those poor people being smothered by a huge pile of...what? Zero signs? Unpaid hospital bills? This is a tough one to visualize, since debt is not a physical thing, much less a liquid. Maybe liquefied hospital bills?

     Anyway, what she really should have said, of course, was that some people are figuratively drowning in debt.

     I must remember to advise my ENG students to avoid using the word at all, unless they have taken Tim's mini-course in the meaning of literally and figuratively. Coming soon to a University near you.