Global warming, political unrest, the Bush presidency. the fact that “Lost” is being aired a year later in the UK than in the US–these are all painful aspects of modern life with which I have made my peace.
But when an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary argues that using the word “literally” to mean “figuratively is no big deal, I fear for our future.
That is very sad. This is the one absolute king of verbal pet peeves for me. Chewing with one’s mouth open probably beats it out, but not by much. I was in a meeting earlier this week and the manager of one of our branch offices said that we (a company) were literally being raped by something. I didn’t know whether to laugh, throttle him, or correct him loudly and publicly in a masterful display of my obvious superiority. So I settled for taking a sip of my coffee and maybe looking a little more tired than I already did.