Tragedy in Iowa
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“We had 300 people outside, literally freezing to death,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton marveled on Tuesday before a crowd in Iowa City.
(HT: Jonah Goldberg)
(HT: Jonah Goldberg)
posted by JT at Thursday, January 03, 2008
20 Comments:
Presumably she's lost the English-teacher vote!
:)
That abuse of "literally" is also one of my own pet peeves.
-Turretinfan
Gaffe now being blamed on sleep deprivation.
Alternate Headline:
"Senator Clinton's Campaign Endangers Lives of Hundreds"
Boo Hilary! :-(
Go Ron Paul!!! :-)
Freezing to death, eh, Hillary? So much for global warming...
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Incidentally, what's going on in the final sentence of the above comment is a gross misuse of "your"...;)
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... and (of course) the intensifiers "really" and "truly" are equally as irksome when they are used in hyperbole.
Look at how "very" was gutted of all other of its original meaning by that very (ha!) mechanism.
-Turretinfan
William Alston told our Christian philosophers group that he had once heard a football announcer say, "and when he gets down into the red zone, he literally explodes!"
I knew football was dangerous, but I didn't know how bad it was.
Incidentally, what's going on here linguistically is that the word 'literally' is being used as an intensifier rather than to convey its literal meaning. This usage of the word is roughly synonymous to other intensifiers such as 'really', 'truly', and 'completely'. What's funny about it is how easy it is to intensify a metaphor by adding the word 'literal' without meaning it literally.
Reminds me of a Shawn Spencer quote from Psych:
Juliet O'Hara: "Detective Lassiter is literally on fire."
Shawn Spencer: "What kind of fire are we talking about? Michael Jackson in the Pepsi commercial fire or misusing the word "literally" fire?"
It was only when I read the comments that I realised she was exaggerated. I thought (not living in America or following your politics) people had actually died! I suppose it could be seen as people literally in the process of freezing to death but escaping at the last minute.
Ah, I meant exaggerating.
And this from the wife of the "Education" president.
"Literally" should be added to this list of banished words for 2008 along with others such as "random," "emotional," and "give back."
http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php
It was the perfect storm of frigid temperatures and people who are too literal that caused this frozen tragedy. However, the opportunistic Hillary Clinton made the most of the randomness of the day's events. Playing upon the lingering Post-911 spirit of charity among Iowans, Clinton campaign workers, wanting to give back to their supporters, collected money for those who had perished. As a result, an emotional Hillary Clinton learned that she was experiencing a dramatic surge in her poll numbers, threatening to decimate competitor Barack Obama. She was so overwhelmed that she could not speak. She handed the microphone to Bill who grinned and said, "Sweet!"
Pollsters explained her jump in the polls by saying, "Hillary is the new Mother Teresa."
Obama, when notified of the turn of events simply said, "It is what it is." Asked if there would be any changes in his campaign staff, he said that he would not rule anything out, including, "throwing Oprah under the bus," if that's what it would take to be president.
because of its common misuse, some dictionaries now allow for the figurative (intensifying) use of the word "literally."
I love irony.
Mike, what's ironic about a source that describes language use recognizing a change in the language? Isn't it the function of a dictionary to inform people about what the language really is like?
That is too funny
I think that the dictionary is (sadly) correct to note the change.
I just think that it's ironic that the word "literally" can now be properly used in a figurative sense.
Mike, I have no problem whatsoever with your view. I do think it's unfortunate that this word of all words has become an intensifier, because that so radically differs from its usual meaning. I guess there is an irony in this, of all words, being used non-literally. I just didn't see what was ironic about a dictionary acknowledging this.
At least she didn't say it in a southern accent.
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