Literally!

Here's another funny example of people using the word "literally" wrong.

I was listening to the Baylor broadcast of their basketball game against Texas on Saturday. As Texas got the ball for the first time, apparently one of Baylor's defenders was guarding Longhorn J'Covan Brown very closely. So closely, in fact, that Baylor's color commentator said something along these lines: "You can see early on what Baylor's strategy is with J'Covan Brown, as the Baylor defender was literally in Brown's uniform with him."

That was one time I really regretted having to listen on the radio. Would have loved to see that.

Literally!

Another example of the word "literal" being misused. Read it on a message board.

"The Left can see Man-made Global Warming where there is none, but can't see a deficit or a gargantuan national debt that literally has a hand on their throat."

Ha! I knew this deficit thing was bad, but I had no idea it had grown hands and whatnot.

Literally!

One reason I finally buckled down and started a blog again was so that I'd have a quick, easy place to catalog a few things that I always intend to write down but never do.

I enjoy the English language and all the ways to butcher it, both intentionally and not-tentially (there should be a word for that), and one of my favorites is when people use the word "literally" wrong. And it happens a LOT. So, I plan on noting them in the blog from now on, starting with this one that I heard Saturday.

During the U.S. Open golf tournament, a player hit his ball into a bunker and faced a difficult shot. The announcer said something like this:

"Difficult shot coming up here, but So-and-so is a magician around the greens. And he's going to literally have to pull a rabbit out of a hat on this shot."

I never did see the rabbit.