Literally, Very Intense(ifier)
I was forwarded a link recently to an article LITERALLY about the word “literally.” It opened with a reference to Rob Lowe’s (love him) character on “Parks and Recreation” (love it), so I was hooked. But outside of the references to pop culture, the article makes a valid point about the careless way with which the adverb is misused by seemingly everyone – from Chris Traeger on Parks & Rec to President Obama. Somewhere along the way, “literally” came to be used as a throw-away exaggerator, intensifier and filler, and the linguists interviewed in the article predict that as it continues to drift farther from its actual definition, the word has a doomed fate.
At the very least, the piece got me thinking about other such abused words. A few of the most common, if you ask me:
“Like” – It is every tween girl’s tendency to clutter a single sentence with the word “like” numerous times. Growing up in a household with two parents for whom proper English and grammar is a high priority (they were both reporters/editors, and my mom worked as a freelance copyeditor when my sisters and I were younger), I was continually discouraged from and even chastised for succumbing to the “like” phenomenon. I struggled for years, but now consider myself an (almost) reformed “like” abuser (this is not to say I don’t relapse from time to time).
“Legitimately” – This is a similar intensifier to literally in that it’s used to dramatize. “This is legitimately the most interesting blog post I’ve ever read...”
“Very” (or “extremely”) – Same deal here. By dropping these intensifiers so frequently and thoughtlessly into everyday discourse, they tend to lose their meaning. If you listen closely, you’ll hear on reality TV and in daily conversation just how often these types of words are used.
There are many, many more misused words—I came across a recent ListVerse Top 10 Misused English Words list, but this isn’t a catchall either. In PR, it’s important to be able to speak and write clearly and concisely, which—for me at least—often means editing out these fillers from plans, bylines or other documents, and from catching myself in conversations. It is LITERALLY one of the hardest things ever... 