There is a new web application that is “literally” blowing my mind. Figuratively speaking that is.
An American programmer and all-round tech genius has created a Google Chrome extension to replace the word “literally” with the word “figuratively” when it appears in a text.
With the way grammar is going, this seems like a cause for celebration…
The program, developed by Mike Walker, is basically an extension you can load onto your Google Chrome browser that will pick up the word “literally” and swap it for the word “figuratively”. So the new headline becomes something like this: “The 2014 MTV Movie Awards were Figuratively on Fire”
The only issue with this? The program doesn’t register tweets and can’t recognise when the word literally is being used in the literal sense… literally speaking.
Regardless, this program is awesome (in both the literal and the figurative sense) for those of us who are sticklers for grammar. And also for those of us who occasionally forget the rules.
Before you download it you should check out this video – I “literally died” with laughter when I saw it. Well, you know what I mean.
You can install the new Google Chrome extension here.
Top Comments
Do you intend your assertion to be taken literally?
First, the "literally" vs. "figuratively" debate isn't about grammar. Both "literally" and "figuratively" are adverbs, and using them to modify verbs or adjectives or other adverbs is entirely correct. "Grammar sticklers" should know the difference between grammar and vocabulary.
Second, this isn't a vocabulary error. It's a METAPHOR, and anybody who claims to be confused by its "improper" usage is either lying or has the kind of very specific brain injury that Oliver Sacks might write about - the inability to understand figurative speech unless it's explicitly labeled as such.
The problem people have with "I literally fell off my chair" is that they claim that the speaker is saying that this is factual, that it really happened; and yet, nobody complains about "I fell off my chair," which also looks like a factual statement. Anyone who would insist on replacing "literally" with "figuratively" to make this clear should also insist on inserting "figuratively" into ANY figurative speech, for exactly the same reason (that they are talking to similarly brain-injured people who don't understand figurative speech).
If someone says, "I wanted to kill him; I wanted to rip his arms off and beat him to death with them," they are generally exaggerating, and this is generally understood. If they say, "I really wanted to kill him," they are also exaggerating, and nobody complains that they're misusing "really."
Can someone explain why "really" is acceptable as an intensifier, when its for-purposes-of-exaggeration synonym "literally" is not?
Ignorance really. And I was one of the ignorant until I just looked up the definition of 'literally' and saw that it is also used, informally, 'for emphasis while not being true'. So all those teeny boppers saying things like 'I was literally screaming my head off' are using it correctly according to its definition.
You said the word literally is a metaphor, but isn't it the opposite of metaphorically? Metaphors relate to figures of speech used for comparison, not as emphasis nor used in a literal sense.