Whilst reading a fun little article about Vice President Joe
Biden called Big &#%!ing Joker (here) in National Review by Jonah Goldberg I ran across a couple of
passages that seemed apropos for this blog.
I'm not a big "literal/figurative" cop. If someone
miss-uses the literal or figurative definitions in a sentence I might point it
out if I have nothing better to do but I don't make a big thing. It's generally
miss-used in our society I find, but with a bit of prodding one can help others
get back on the right track. It's not like the problems going around with
Forte. So many people say forte with the "ay" sound on the end when
they actually mean, forte no "ay" sound. It's just about been changed
in our lexicon in the same way that (much to my grandmother's disappointment)
snuck has been accepted. I've not quite given up on
"literal/figurative" as I have on "forte." Still this
article was fun to read thanks to these two passages:
The word “literally” has taken a beating in the Age of
Biden. He’s often proclaimed that Obama had the opportunity “literally to
change the direction of the world” (which, if possible, might help fulfill that
promise to lower sea levels). Biden announced that “before we arrived in the
West Wing, Mr. Boehner and his party ran the economy and the middle class
literally into the ground.” His speeches are “literally” festooned with
“literally”s, like hundreds of tethers to the hot-air balloon that is his head.
The standard joke is to quote the scene in The Princess Bride when Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The problem is that Biden insists that he does know what it means. One of his favorite ways to emphasize his seriousness is to say, “and I mean literally, not figuratively,” as if “literally” meant “I’m really serious” and “figuratively” connoted some effeminate lack of conviction. He says JFK’s “call to service literally, not figuratively, still resounds from generation to generation.” He told students in Africa, “You are the keystone to East Africa — literally, not figuratively, you are the keystone.” “The American people are looking for us as Democrats,” he has said. “They’re looking for someone literally, not figuratively, to restore America’s place in the world.” Speaking at a rally for Senator Patty Murray, he said, “I have now gone into 110 races around the country, and everywhere I go I see ordinary people who play by the rules, get everything right, paid their mortgage, showed up in their school helping their kids, made sure that they did everything they could to save to get their kid to college, took their mom and dad in when they needed help and hoped to save a little bit of money so they wouldn’t have to rely on their own kids when the time came.” Here’s the kicker: “And all of a sudden, all of a sudden — literally, not figuratively — they were decimated.” If they were literally decimated, Biden doesn’t just see ordinary people, he sees dead people. But only one for every nine among the living.
The standard joke is to quote the scene in The Princess Bride when Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The problem is that Biden insists that he does know what it means. One of his favorite ways to emphasize his seriousness is to say, “and I mean literally, not figuratively,” as if “literally” meant “I’m really serious” and “figuratively” connoted some effeminate lack of conviction. He says JFK’s “call to service literally, not figuratively, still resounds from generation to generation.” He told students in Africa, “You are the keystone to East Africa — literally, not figuratively, you are the keystone.” “The American people are looking for us as Democrats,” he has said. “They’re looking for someone literally, not figuratively, to restore America’s place in the world.” Speaking at a rally for Senator Patty Murray, he said, “I have now gone into 110 races around the country, and everywhere I go I see ordinary people who play by the rules, get everything right, paid their mortgage, showed up in their school helping their kids, made sure that they did everything they could to save to get their kid to college, took their mom and dad in when they needed help and hoped to save a little bit of money so they wouldn’t have to rely on their own kids when the time came.” Here’s the kicker: “And all of a sudden, all of a sudden — literally, not figuratively — they were decimated.” If they were literally decimated, Biden doesn’t just see ordinary people, he sees dead people. But only one for every nine among the living.
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