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A good example of misuse of the word “literally” on the radio this morning. Some financial bloke was talking about money troubles in the postal service, and said that “the pension fund shortfall is literally a black hole in the Royal Mail’s accounts“. So did he mean that the shortfall is literally one of those things in space which swallows everything up? Or, given that these black holes are themselves only a concept and not literally holes, did he mean that, somewhere at Royal Mail HQ, there’s a dusty, leather-bound ledger with a hole in it that is black? I think we should be told…
(More “Literallys” here …)
I love the misuse of “literally”. Jon recently commented that “Prince Edward, making a historical documentary, once said that, after the sudden death of his father, Henry VIII was literally catapulted onto the throne“, which made me laugh for a week. And this morning I read in an advert that “this is the smallest PC ever. It literally puts the world in your pocket“. Hmmm…
A friend commented, when we were looking for his golf ball in very thick bushes, that we were “literally looking for a needle in a haystack“.
