I do not think it means what you think it means:
Oh, and if you’re planning to tell me in comments that “literally” has evolved to mean “figuratively” or that it is okay to use it incorrectly to emphasize a point, stuff it. Open thread!
That word…
by Betty Cracker| 184 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Assholes, General Stupidity
craigie
Too right! Literally literally means literally. It doesn’t figuratively mean literally.
Literally!
Napoleon
Pierson and Hannity are literally morons.
Fair Economist
Is it just me or is that Fox panel set up to tease the viewers with a possible upskirt shot? And does this say anything about the morality of Fox viewers?
MattF
And figuratively always means figuratively. Literally.
Richard Mayhew
Inconceivable
Mike J
Trump up by 6!
Of course that’s Texas. Romney won Texas by 16.
Mnemosyne
Reposted from a thread below, because I think quite a few people here (especially Kay) are going to LOVE today’s Facebook post from Hillary:
Fair Economist
@craigie: You mean it doesn’t literally mean figuratively. (I figure.)
dedc79
If only this misuse of “literally” was specific to Trump stooges. Unfortunately, it’s far more widespread.
That said, these recent Pierson and Hannity examples are particularly egregious.
Meanwhile, anyone think it’s no coincidence that Trump appears to have brought Ailes in as a debate coach while Ivanka was off on a european vacation?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Ailes just signed onto Trump’s campaign as his communications director, because Bill Cosby wasn’t available I guess.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
I can already hear the Fox producer: Honey, did you ever see “Basic Instinct”?
Yes, I’m assuming all Fox producers are sexist asshats. Prove me wrong.
cervantes
When I was in the theatuh, one of my co-stars got a review that she “literally sparkled like a diamond.” Now that would have been weird.
Punchy
This is literally the worst blog post I’ve ever seen. And by worst I mean best.
Just fuck off, B-Crack. And by fuck off, I mean have a good day.
RaflW
It almost exactlyᵟ means whatever the heck it means.
But I literallyᵠ did a spit-take when I saw this post.
.
ᵟMy dad went nuts whenever we said “almost exactly” because, well, he was a grammar nut.
ᵠNot even remotely meant to be a factual statement.
RaflW
@Napoleon: This, however, is a factual statement.
Mnemosyne
@cervantes:
Was she playing a vampire in a poorly-written Mary Sue fantasy?
Gin & Tonic
@Punchy: This post is actually fairly unique in that regard.
/ducks and runs
craigie
I would like Hannity to literally shut the fuck up though.
craigie
@Fair Economist: You’re literally right. My bad.
boatboy_srq
Perhaps what they mean is littorally, and what we’re seeing is a spelling error?
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: Is there such a thing as a well-written Mary Sue fantasy?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
My youngest daughter just recently took a job with a wonderful design/architecture group here in Boston. They’ve done amazing work in desperately needy parts of the world – they’re collaborating on a project in Montgomery, AL to memorialize lynchings.
Bryan Stevenson and the legacy of lynching. This is a mind blowing article by Jeffrey Toobin.
Memorial in Alabama Will Honor Victims of Lynching
Such brave, necessary work by extraordinary human beings. Literally.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: In that case, I’ll repost my reply: That’s a great start. But I think we’ll really start to make progress when we agree to value service jobs like the manufacturing jobs so fond in Tweety’s memory. There’s nothing more elevated or magical about operating a jackhammer or spot welding a widget onto an appliance than there is about managing baristas or looking after preschoolers in a daycare. Except that most of the people who do the former are white men.
rikyrah
@dedc79:
On vacation with Putin’s Boo.
dedc79
I’m just now learning about this aspect of the Trump-Ailes connection:
germy shoemangler
From the Devil’s Dictionary (Ambrose Bierce)
Literally, adv. Figuratively, as: ‘The pond was literally full of fish’; ‘The ground was literally alive with snakes,’ etc.
(Of course, Bierce was joking)
boatboy_srq
@Fair Economist: Newscorp. What we consider risque they consider marketable. Literally.
The target audience IS white, straight and male…
JPL
You know who else had trouble with figures of speech, Amelia Bedelia! She was nice though, which is more that I can say about Hannity.
RaflW
@Mnemosyne: I agree with where HRC is going with this. We saddle millions of young adults (and middle age career changers) with big college debt for degrees that may not serve them very well.
I am all for college for folks who want it, either for career goals or to have a broad liberal arts education to become enriched and better functioning people. But I am also all for things like 20 week career training for HS diploma holders/GEDers who want to learn to run a backhoe and do construction work (disclosure: I do consulting in the Twin Cities around racial equity in publicly funded construction jobs, so this example isn’t just pulled out of my … uhh … back pocket).
We’re facing a coming wave of retirement of white-skinned, grey haired plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and lots of other well-paying blue collar trades. This is honorable work, and we as a culture have IMO overemphasised 4 year college degrees as the pathway to good jobs.
Some people are kinesthetic learners and want hands-on jobs. Why push them to go to universities that won’t teach them that and will end up with debt, and quite possibly end with them quitting partway through and feeling like a failure?
Maybe I’m a do-gooder liberal who is over romanticising hard, sweaty, sometimes dangerous work. But someone’s gotta do it. And a lot of it pays $18-$25-$38 an hour over time. Not bad!
ETA: We have to do better at helping folks get their GEDs, too!
shomi
This is what Republicans losing badly looks like. Literally (as in figuratively) curling up into the fetal position and sucking their thumbs. It’s a beautiful thing.
boatboy_srq
@dedc79: Ailes. So many skeletons in that closet, you would think you were at a Dia de Muertos parade.
Calming Influence
@cervantes: Maybe she was a vampire.
germy shoemangler
@boatboy_srq:
Marketable
Droppy
Once a coworker of mine said his “brain literally exploded” over something. I, being young and stupid, proceeded to explain literally blah blah blah; and he said, “Literally fuck you!” and I thought, “OK, he really doesn’t know what it means.”
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
People who misuse the word “literally” should be figuratively smacked with a flounder.
germy shoemangler
Curious…
What’s next for Katrina Pierson after November ’16?
Keith P.
Sean Hannity can literally suck my balls (I’ve seen him open his mouth enough to know they’ll literally fit…both at the same time)
Miss Bianca
Do you mean “Stuff it” literally? Or figuratively? (ducks)
Punchy
@boatboy_srq: I dont….sea…what you’re talking about.
Aardvark Cheeselog
In other news, the NYT asks “Americans Don’t Trust Her. But Why?” and fails to answer the question. Which is not surprising, considering what they’d have to admit.
Shalimar
Fargin’ Iceholes!
Mnemosyne
I realize that I’m lucky that I didn’t suffer any apparent ill effects from my mother’s having been given DES while she was pregnant with me, but I HATE having to get a Pap smear every damn year. Ugh.
Elmo
Bah. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, and make sure to throw it at the Vice President. He’s the biggest offender.
Literally, the biggest.
rikyrah
@dedc79:
this explains a lot.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Good point. The way we as a culture look at daycare & preschool workers, and how we pay them, says terrible things about how sexist we are, and how little we actually value children in our country.
I have a cousin who is a daycare worker in Sweden. She lives a solidly middle class life and both of her daughters are do child care work (or school for it), because they see their mom having a respected job. I do still see a big gender gap in childcare in Sweden, not sure how much of that is sexism vs. what people actually want to do for work. Tricky territory, that.
Anyway, Sweden has also upped their game, requiring levels of certification now that show that they are serious about the developmental work that happens in daycare (while still letting kids be kids and have fun). Curious how that (not really all that) soshulist country kicks our butts when it comes to this and so many other quality of life measures. Makes ya wonder why wingers like Trump and even Mittens say Europe with such venom.
rikyrah
looking at that picture of Fox Noise…
what happened to Hasselback?
she just disappeared…poof
Tom Levenson
@Napoleon: Line picked up in a trash cop show: “If you were twice as smart you’d be a moron.”
Works in a surprising number of situations.
Humdog
@Betty Cracker: my theory is we need to truly start revering what has been traditional “women’s work”. Caring for the elderly or children, preparing meals and keeping house, teaching, caring for the sick or disabled. All these jobs are non outsourcable but I feel that too many people think they should be done on the cheap. Maybe because we all saw our mothers do this work without compensation or even much cognition, we think everyone who does these jobs should expect low compensation and disregard for those who do this work. If we paid our caregivers wages that showed how important they are to the proper functioning of our lives, the lower and middle classes would be so much better off. Right now, home caregivers do not get paid minimum wage nor do they get overtime. Because each family is left to figure out how to care for families, each of us ad hoc bandages together what we can and we cannot pay much. But if these caring jobs were paid well and those who need the services could pay on a sliding scale, I think we would have full employment, happier families and more secure finances for our citizens. A gal can dream…..
RaflW
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: I suggest a figure eight motion.
germy
@rikyrah: Here’s a quote from her:
Cat48
I guess Ailes is showing Trump how to sexually harass Hillary during the debate.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Totes agree. As I said in the other thread, I think the main reason service jobs are so underpaid is that they were traditionally done by women, which always holds wages down because capitalism is a sexist pig.
hovercraft
Trevor Noah had a lot of fun at her expense last night, I had no idea she was a criminal. Can you imagine if Hilary had a spokesperson who was a shoplifter ? The fainting couches would be filled with villagers.
Mnemosyne
@dmsilev:
There are some who say that Harriet Vane was Dorothy L. Sayers’ Mary Sue in the Lord Peter Wimsey novels, so I think there can be. You really have to be a genius, though.
(And, speaking of sexism, plenty of sci-fi fans are quick to claim that such-and-such is a terrible book/movie/comic book/TV show because the heroine is a Mary Sue, but they often seem to overlook the male equivalents that the genre is flooded with.)
japa21
@Aardvark Cheeselog: It occurred to me that there was literally more evidence of GWB not fulfilling his military obligations than there is of any wrongdoing on Clinton’s part in regard to email, Benghazi, etc. However, because of one weak link in the presentation, the media gave Bush a pass. So yes, the NYT would have to admit culpability to both and it is not willing to do so.
Booger
He litorally drowned in the shallow waters near the beach.
bookdragon
Obviously they used ‘literally’ sarcastically.
(ducks and runs)
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I’m guessing that having a large football player as her spouse didn’t exactly hurt.
ruckus
@RaflW:
They say it with venom because they know if anyone takes a good look at the socialist countries they will want that.
eric
@Mnemosyne: those service jobs were open to women because the good paying service jobs went to white men
germy
@Mnemosyne: Like most bullies, they know who to fuck with and who to leave alone.
Gindy51
@dedc79: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. No wonder Ailes joined the Trump crew. What batshittery is he going to let loose to fuck Trump in the ass…
germy
@hovercraft:
That’s literally the first time I’ve seen that clip (Katrina on reality TV admitting to shoplifting) but I’m certain if Katrina were spokesperson for HRC, I would have seen it a hundred times already on the nightly news.
“Coming up… what does her choice of spokespeople say about Hillary Clinton?” etc.
Gindy51
@RaflW: The guy who hauls mulch for the gardeners makes more per hour than my double degreed legal secretary daughter… I told her to start dating plumbers…
germy
@hovercraft:
I love that reality show clip, where she says “Yes, I shoplifted clothes for a job.”
In other words, she’s a good thief because she was using the clothes to wear to job interviews. I wonder if she has a receipt for that bullet necklace, or is some hunter’s wife somewhere saying “Where the hell is that anniversary present? I left it next to the lady’s room sink for just a few seconds!”
Patricia Kayden
So what if CNN “literally kisses” Secretary Clinton’s behind? Fox News “literally kisses” Trump’s behind so everything is okey dokey. It’s amazing that the earth didn’t open up and swallow them whole during that segment. Hypocrisy to the max.
JPL
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: You must be so pleased, and thank you for the link to the article. Although I’m a Times subscriber, I had missed that.
Joel
One way you could interpret a Trump-Ailes pairing is that Trump is setting up to go against Murdoch.
Shell
Its a perfectly cromulent word
germy
@Gindy51:
Cacti
Misuse of the word literally drives me figuratively insane.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: A lot of the problem is employers who think that they can order up employees like nails. To specification. Humans do not work that way, but the MBA mindset demands that employees do. Which is why they’re so fond of robots.
You lead people. You manage things. Hence the fallacy of “management”.
Villago Delenda Est
@germy: Let’s see now. How much truth has ever emanated from the Drumpf campaign? Why should we believe this?
Jeffro
Is there something wrong or out of date with the word “really”? Because that’s what they “really” mean when they say “literally”.
Really.
Mike J
@Gindy51:
Before she retired my legal secretary mom did well, but she was at the phase of her career where she worked for rainmaker partners in white shoe firms and if an associate drafted a brief she could tell them what needed to be corrected before the partner ever saw it. She wasn’t always in that position and wasn’t compensated that way until she was.
raven
@RaflW: I got mine. . . 49 years ago!
RaflW
@ruckus: Yes of course! I am not a Michael Moore fanboi, but Where to Invade Next was excellent at pointing out how myopic our view of the rest of the world is.
I was furious at Mittens for his anti-European bullshit. The man is a) an international capitalist (maybe oligarchist, but you get my drift) b) did his Mormon mission trip in France and c) he was deeply involved in the SLC Olympics, arguably one of the pinnacles of global internationalism.
What a skeezy bastard to have played along with the GOP anti-Europe talking points with such aplomb.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: For some reason, I have a feeling that Pierson is not Trump’s only spokesperson who has a seamy and less than stalwart background. Manafort has a sleazy reputation of counseling dictators, for example.
scuffletuffle
I would literally love to see each and every one of these morons kiss Hillary’s pant-suited ass…
Jeffro
Also…lacking anything better to do than wait for the next Trump self-inflicted wound, liberal pundits are asking if Clinton will keep the Garland SCOTUS nomination alive, and if not, “isn’t that just rewarding the GOP for bad behavior”?
I say, let’s ask President Obama to put an expiration date on the Garland nom: midnight on election eve. After that, it’ll be President Clinton’s pick. Your move, Turtle.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW: They value something other than money. This makes them socialist. That’s the bottom line.
germy
@Villago Delenda Est:
No reason, really to believe it.
It would make sense he’d be an undercover advisor! They love that cloak and dagger stuff…
Right out of “Mission Impossible” (“in the event you are captured or killed, the campaign will disavow any knowledge of your actions…”)
Mike J
Caleb in 1st approach the 1st windward in the Finn medal race! Good shot at the bronze!
The Other Chuck
@Mnemosyne:
Also known as a Marty Stu, and typically they inhabit the same story: Stieg Larsson’s books for example.
Feathers
@Mnemosyne: @dmsilev: @Mnemosyne: Argh. One of the reasons the term Mary Sue needs to die already. The term was literally created (ha) to refer to author self-insertion in fan fiction. Specifically:
-Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Making Light
To stretch that to include any female character, written by a woman, with some autobiographical notes, truly demeans women’s writing. The original definition is more concerned with the distortion of the story than the “unreality” of the female character, and that really should be the usage focus of “Mary Sue,” rather than the misogynist slur it has become.
I can tell you about Victoria Nelson’s wonderful defense of Twilight at some point. (Ducks.)
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Mike J:
Excellent! He will lose the electoral vote bigly (as he likes to say) and the popular vote even more so. Of course, the wingnuts will just declare that if only they’d had a “true conservative” on the ticket, it all would have been different. RaR.
Mike E
Gov McCrory chats up Chief Justice Roberts before vowing to petition SCOTUS to reinstate the discriminatory NC voter ID law
? Martin
@RaflW:
There’s a lot of qualifiers in there that need to be mentioned.
If you go to an in-state public university, that is unlikely to be untrue. Average debt loads from in-state students at public universities averages less than the average car loan. So if college is an undue burden, then car ownership is by a massive amount. And I’ll note that college will almost universally improve your earning potential, while a car is a rapidly depreciating asset.
Private universities are a different matter, as are out-of-state public universities without tuition agreements. Those can be good deals, but it’s just as easy to get into serious financial straits there. For-profit universities are almost universally bad ideas. And then the whole range of problems for those middle-age career changes.
When we talk about debt, we are refusing to talk about these other factors – which is why the issue is being lobbied the way that it is from for-profit universities and privates. Bernie’s simple solution always struck me as wrong because it refused to deal with most of these problems. Debt is in many ways the measure of what’s wrong – but it in itself is not necessarily bad. You can’t provide that education for free. Someone needs to pay for it. And if you make it taxpayer funded then you better as fuck come up with a quality college seat for every kid of every taxpayer because we don’t even pretend to aspire to ‘separate but equal’ when it comes to higher ed. A community college seat is not equal to even a mid-tier state university, let alone a Berkeley or Georgia Tech. State university systems are under fire now more for their inability to meet resident demand than for their costs or debt loads. The cost of failing to meet demand is an insistence by taxpayers that funding be cut (which of course makes the problem worse, but they mostly just want their tax dollar back when their kid can’t get in).
If you have no aspiration to expand the system to meet a ‘free college education’ goal, then you need to shift that cost to the student who directly benefits. And that’s fine so long as the benefit of the education more than covers the cost of it. And it does for every public university that I know of. Getting a bachelors degree is only a losing proposition only for a statistically small number of individuals that can learn trades and secure better paying jobs without the degree. That is, the opportunity cost for college is high only for a small subset of the population, which is difficult to predict. For most people it *is* the path to the middle class and will pay for itself in short order. That said, there are serious access problems that bias the system towards the most prosperous some of which are structural (K-12 funding) and some are self-imposed (the drive for high test scores as a measure of institutional quality which have no relationship to each other). And more than the debt problem is the cost to access the system, and the assumptions that entering students and parents have a certain asset level because financial aid is largely back-loaded. That is, students and parents need to put up cash for testing (AP tests are $92 each), travel, and a host of prep. And that excludes things like test-prep which would help them be more competitive for that access problem above. Financial aid won’t cover these things, and if the family doesn’t have that kind of cash to put out, then they knocked back to a lower tier of the system. A lot of students end up at community college because they can’t do the outlay, even though their future earnings would almost certainly cover the costs easily. This is a problem of consumption smoothing and access to capital, which of course are not fairly distributed to all economic groups. (How many of us reject credit card offers on a weekly basis compared to others who may be desperate to get a cost-effective line of credit?)
Access and better ways of financing college should be the top focus, ahead of debt relief. My students have average starting salaries of around $60K, and over 90% have jobs within 6 mos of graduating. They carry an average of $18K in debt. They’re coming out way ahead given they are earning $25K per year more than the average person without a degree. On $25K per year, your break-even is probably around $300K in debt, and nobody carries remotely close to that. What makes that reasonable is the fact that the value of the education is very high relative to the cost here (not true everywhere), and driving the value up is a better approach than driving the cost down. But we are overly focused on the cost side and not enough on the return, and not enough on access.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Always working the Refs !
WereBear
It wasn’t just “culture.” A lot of corporations started making a Bachelor’s mandatory, no matter how absurd it was, just so they had someone else paying for their pre-screening process.
Cacti
@Mike E:
With a 4-4 split at SCOTUS, the appellate court decision stands.
Villago Delenda Est
@WereBear: DING DING DING DING DING
Brachiator
A seasoned Republican strategist appears regularly on a local radio talk show host here in Los Angeles. Last week he speculated that Trump might get Ailes help with his campaign because Trump knows him well and he has past experience running campaigns. He did not consider the creep factor of Ailes’ recent firing from Fox News. Trump just wants to win, badly.
Meanwhile, this has been an interesting week. Katrinia Pierson and other surrogates are the equivalent of Baghdad Bob. They make themselves and Trump into objects of ridicule.
And even though the MSM supposedly loves Trump and hates Hillary (Sean Hannity notwithstanding), Trump has been slapped around by journalists, especially when he trouts out liars telling their obvious lies.
Also, despite all the nonsense that the MSM insists on a horse race narrative, almost everyone has been explaining with charts, maps and numbers, that Hillary is killing it in the swing states and other previously non-competitive states. This has forced Fox News and conservative outlets into moaning about how polls are “volatile” and “unreliable.”
One odd story was a recent BBC new report about how Trump is trying to appeal to Amish voters with an Amish-PAC to try to make Pennsylvania viable. The reporter noted that the people there know little about Trump and have practically no access to any media. So when they hear that he loves his family and does not drink, they think he is conservative and reliably honest. Go figure.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: So sad for Art Pope’s sockpuppet.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: Yes, like the Amish vote is absolutely decisive in Pennsylvania politics.
The Drumpf people don’t even qualify as political amateurs.
Feathers
@Mnemosyne: @RaflW: I read the thread on a year (or two) of service after it was dead. Why I would be opposed is because it would be yet another delay to young people being able to start their adult lives, but most importantly, would be sending the message again that American workers aren’t really worth hiring and being paid for their work. We need to stop pretending that this is a people problem, and focusing on it as an employer problem. Corporations just are not willing to provide jobs at wages which will allow the economy to grow. This means lifetime employment as well. The service concept would probably be more useful for people over 50 (or 40) who are having trouble finding work. They could be truly useful working for non-profits, schools, or government agencies. A sort of soft landing for people not yet ready to retire, but who have been written off by corporate America. I hope Hillary gets rid of unpaid internships as well. Those must die already.
@Gindy51: Part of this is the lawyer glut and collapse of lawyer’s salaries and jobs. Legal secretaries used to make more than many lawyers do now. Paul Campos at LGM is good on this.
germy
@Villago Delenda Est: When I was a teenager I fell into a habit of reading many biographies of various notable people from the early 20th century. What surprised me was how many of them built solid careers without college educations. They’d get entry-level jobs and work their way up.
Jeffro
@Brachiator:
I’m sorry but this just confirms it: Trump is doing performance art and intends to lecture his supporters on their unbelievable stupidity after the election.
Mike E
@Villago Delenda Est: We got some Burr beating to do, also. Too.
JPL
@germy: At that time, in order to get a CPA or even a law degree, college wasn’t a necessity. You could study and take the boards.
Robert Sneddon
@The Other Chuck: Marty Stu stories do get written by women and Mary Sues by men on occasion. One of the most outstanding Mary Sues in published SF is the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. When I put down the series after having my fill of missile-and-laser carnography the titular character was accelerating through the Adored By All stage and heading for Space Pope.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@JPL:
I so hope for the ruination of Hannity… Humiliations galore… So sick of his smug eyebrows and peepy little bird mouth.
Mike J
GBR takes the gold in Finn, Jobson gets to use the phrase “Union Jack” properly, most likely without even knowing the difference between “jack” and “flag”.
Brachiator
@Feathers:
This also does not adequately deal with situations in which an author falls in love with a character. Edmund Wilson complained that Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey was too perfect; other critics see Harriet Vane, who later marries Wimsey, as a stand-in for the author.
jl
“Literally” has evolved to mean “figuratively” and it is okay to use it to emphasize a point,
? Martin
@Mnemosyne:
This is a supply-side argument, btw. Service wages will go up when consumers are willing to pay more for those services, seeing better value in better service, etc. We may claim that we care deeply about our children and parents care, but when it comes time to open our wallet we overwhelmingly aim for the cheap route. There’s also a LOT of economic friction around service industries. It’s really difficult for a newcomer focused on delivering better service to find a way to break into the market and for consumers that value the service to identify who will provide it. It’s part of the reason why Uber and airbnb have been so successful – they allow both for new entrants (individuals) and they both provide trusted ratings of service quality to allow consumers to either individually choose based on service (airbnb) or to collectively root out the poor performers (Uber).
Dmbeaster
@Fair Economist: The entire Fox production for all its shows are designed for leg and upskirt shots. Its the whole point
germy
@JPL: I remember reading a memoir by James Thurber (one of his serious ones) and he wrote about his first newspaper job. His boss was an extremely tough, old-school newspaper editor. No college degree.
The newspaper was bought out and the new owners felt their management people should all be college men. They phased him out, and Thurber described his subsequent depression and downfall as something terrible to see. The newspaper had been his life. He’d started as a copyboy and worked up to executive editor.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@germy:
The bullet necklace… How absolutely ludicrous and predictable. She imagines herself to be clever. Ridiculous troll being ridiculous.
germy
@Dmbeaster: All the blood rushes away from male viewers’ heads, which makes them more likely to believe in supply-side economics.
LeonS
Not only that, but the truth has evolved to mean whatever Trump, or any right wing radio host, says that day.
germy
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I hope he takes his barber with him.
Shalimar
@Patricia Kayden: @hovercraft: Well, Lewandowski did plan the 9/11 attacks, so that is sort of a criminal past.*
*No, he didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. But, remember the old Law and Order episode where the guy killed his best friend in a climbing “accident” because he was in love with and later married the best friend’s wife? Lewandowski has known his wife since junior high and she was previously married to a close friend, who died on one of the 9/11 planes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“literally-ness”?
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
They have convinced themselves that the Amish vote just might be enough to help them carry the state in a tight election. The BBC reporter was both knowledgeable of electoral politics and credulous about this claim.
This seems as nutty as Trump’s recent appearances in New York and Connecticut. But it’s fine by me if he wants to tilt at windmills.
aimai
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Thank you so much for posting this! I hope I get a chance to meet you and your daughter some day, at some future balloon juice meetup in the boston area! That was, indeed, a great article in the New Yorker and I’m so far behind in my reading that they are just piled up, untouched. I probably would have missed it if you hadn’t linked to it. Thank you!
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: There’s also the issue of people who say “decimate” when they presumably mean “devestate”. I blame sports announcers.
Betty Cracker
@jl: Looks like you lost some copy after that comma. I’d suggest: “if you’re a moron like Sean Hannity.”
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne: Her husband was a back up quarterback. Not exactly “large” as NFL standards go.
danielx
@cervantes:
I have seen a performer who did literally sparkle like a diamond. Was probably a couple of decades ago; Chris Izaak at a club performance. He came out wearing this jacket sewn with all these little Mylar disks, a la Liberace. They hit him with a spot and he looked like a walking mirror ball.
aimai
@jl: Literally means figuratively when used with a figure or an image (she literally sparkles like a diamond) but not when used to mean “in fact” as in “they literally beat the reporters.” You could say “they literally beat them like rented mules” and that would be ok, though. The addition of “like rented mules” indicates that you are using literally, figuratively.
germy
@Gravenstone: Large by male “Fox and Friends” host standards, though…
Mike J
Next medal race, Nacra 17. The US has a Turkish immigrant teamed with the daughter of a senator for our team. They’re out of the medal points, but in the final race.
NonyNony
I mean, you can argue with Charles Dickens if you would like, but I figure if he could use the word “literally” to mean “figuratively” in 1838 and still be considered one of the pillars of English Literature then I’m not going to choose this particular hill to die on.
It’s not a one-off usage either. The use of “literally” as a modifier for emphasis is now literally (in the original sense) almost 2 centuries old. People who harp on about it as being the “wrong usage” are getting tiresome because that ship has sailed and everyone knows from context when you’re using it in its original sense vs. when you’re using it for emphasis. And that when you say “I literally shit a brick” everyone who isn’t an outright moron knows that you did not actually release a brick into your pants.
Gravenstone
@germy: So, so many people “not formally involved” with the Trump debacle seem to be quite intimately intertwined with the Trump debacle (cf. Lewandowski, C; Stone, R.; Ailes, R. …) Is that where the missing campaign bucks are going, to paying (under the table) all these august “not involved” personages?
germy
@Gravenstone: “run a campaign/the country like a business!” (translation: in an underhanded and dirty way)
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@germy shoemangler:
Hmm, good question… Maybe she’ll join Stacy Dash in Republican outreach to people of color? I’m sure she’d resonate.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@danielx:
I saw him in that suit in Reno. Great concert.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@aimai:
Maybe a fall meet up – hope we can convince Siubhan Duinne to return. We’re overdue for one.
Oh, and fuck Alabama and their all white Republican elected judges who still carry on lynchings but under cover of law.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@NonyNony:
Mary G
@Humdog: This. My caregiver truly has a calling for the job, going way beyond the minimum to make sure her clients are living as full a live as they are capable of. She works twelve hours a day more often than not, yet still has no money. She got her citizenship to vote for Obama in 2008 when I told her Mitt Romney’s tax rate. It is completely unfair that he pays so little for doing nothing more than watching his bank balance grow, and she pays twice as high a rate doing such a vital job. A few years earlier, before the ACA passed, she threw a hernia lifting a patient out of bed. She had no insurance. Her agency considers her an independent contractor.
The surgery would have cost $30,000 here in California, so she had it in Mexico for $4,500 that she paid for herself with help from family as well as clients, but she shouldn’t have had to worry about the bills. Of course she didn’t get paid while recovering either, so she is still cleaning her credit up.
Every time Trump whines about immigrants, I fume.
NorthLeft12
These stories just confirm that Trump’s supporters are as ignorant and stupid as he is.
I still chuckle to myself every time I recall one of the stupidest guys on the planet [Bobbi Jindal] saying that the Republican party must stop being the party of stupid. Another failure to add to the list of many for Republicans.
Betty Cracker
@NonyNony: This deserves the point by point treatment:
Doesn’t matter how august a person used it incorrectly or how long ago he did it. It is true that the meaning of words evolves over time, but sheer goddamned ignorance shouldn’t force a perfectly useful word to take on its opposite meaning.
Really? I literally puked after I read the headlines this morning. Do I have a stomach bug, or was the news remarkably bad?
In that case, yes, I would assume that the speaker’s pants are as free of masonry as his language is of precision.
Feathers
@Brachiator: So you are using a sixty year old essay with a misogynist slamming of a woman’s writing to justify using a term which does not apply to the work referred to as a misogynist slam against its (female) author. A character is not a “Mary Sue” unless normal story values are grossly subordinated to inadequately transformed personal wish-fulfillment fantasies. Are you saying this is the case inStrong Poison, Gaudy Night, and Busman’s Honeymoon? Are the novels containing Harriet Vane noticeably worse than the ones where she is absent?
A positive female character who serves some wish fulfillment functions for the female audience is NOT a “Mary Sue,” unless she distorts the story so badly as to pull it off the rails. If you think Gaudy Night sucks because it contains Harriet Vane, say so. Don’t hide behind the misogynists of the past.
Damned at Random
Longtime verbal quirk of Hannity’s. The spousal unit and I played a drinking game with his radio show once, drinking on every literally. Neither of us finished the three hours.
He literally can’t help himself
glory b
@? Martin: What do you teach?
We should have a career day thread some day. It would be nice to know what we all do IRL.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Feathers: It’s important that you get in touch with your feelings.
Mike in NC
Drumpf’s people all look like the cast of a Grade B horror movie.
glory b
@germy: Quite a while ago, I had a conversation with a ready to retire coworker whose husband, with only a high school diploma, was a salesman for a major corporation.
He was a WWII vet, and all of his coworkers only had high school diplomas too. By the time he retired, the older guys had h.s. diplomas, all of the younger ones had bachelors degrees in business, doing the same job.
Miss Bianca
@Feathers: I don’t know nuffink about a “wonderful defense of Twilight” (side-eye at the very thought, but hey…I can be open-minded. Up to a point), but I definitely agree that the term “Mary Sue” should now, officially, DIAF already.
ETA: *particularly* with regard to Harriet Vane and DLS. Harumph!
Brachiator
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Or the redundancy of “situation.”
“It’s a fourth down situation.”
No, it’s just fourth down.
Also, too, “hostage situation.”
Mnemosyne
@Feathers:
That thread kind of wandered off the rails of my original point, which is that it would be a good idea for us to find physically challenging work for young men who don’t want to go to college (or aren’t ready to) but don’t want to go into the military, either. Not everyone knows exactly what they want to do with their lives after high school graduation, and that’s okay, but it would be better to channel that diffuse energy into, say, woodland firefighting or national park maintenance than letting those young men (mostly) sit around getting angry.
Right now, college is taking up that energy for the academically inclined, but there isn’t another choice for those who aren’t sure what they want to do, except that they don’t want to learn to kill people in the military.
maryQ
Well, data has evolved to mean singular and plural. Apparently it is OK to say “the data says…” or “the data shows…” in the friggin New York times, so what the hell, why not just use words however you want. Like use “literally” when you mean “figuratively” and say “there were no terrorist attacks before Barack Obama was president” when you mean “Blackly blackly welfare gang banger Muslim black black”. Or whatever.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Brachiator:
What about the redundancy of “also, too”—and the fact that Sarah Palin is in your head?
And “hostage situation” is not redundant. A hostage is a person, not an event or situation, so you wouldn’t describe the latter by saying “It’s a hostage.”
Amir Khalid
As a conscientious user of English, I try not to say or write “literal” in any sense but the literal.
I reckon a Mary Sue character in fiction can be of any gender, not necessarily the same as the author. Some writers do have a bad habit of inserting themselves into the story in this way, and — when used properly! — the term is a useful way to call it out That the term is subject to inept (or sometimes malign) misuse doesn’t invalidate it.
The Lodger
@Betty Cracker: That’s “If you’re a moron, like Sean Hannity.”
danielx
Speaking of literal interpretations…after five days of rain I have discovered the following.
North Face water resistant shell parka – isn’t.
Merrell waterproof boots – aren’t.
SunDay waterproof hat – you know where this is going, right?
Brachiator
@Feathers:
I am saying that Wimsey was crafted to be perfect, Sayers fell in love with the character, and in part created Harriet Vane as a vehicle for wish-fulfillment. But Sayers was a wonderful writer of mysteries, and the partial origins of Harriet Vane does not prevent her from being a fun and interesting character in her own right.
Bottom line: that a critic may be a misogynist does not in itself render his judgments to be meaningless. And yes, this situation is not a “classic Mary Sue,” but that was not my point. We may agree (or maybe that was another poster) that simply designating a character as a Mary Sue does not by itself make a story bad. Sometimes a trope is just a trope; other times it is a tiresome cliche. Depends on the skill of the writer.
Other critics have made similar observations about Wimsey and Vane. What you do with the information as a reader is independent of your respect or lack of respect for a particular critic.
Again, Vane’s origins was in some ways wish fulfillment for Sayers. Other readers, male or female, may not know this or may not care even if they do know. How they view Vane or Wimsey is separate from Sayers and does not depend on the author’s approval or disapproval of the character. And again, Sayers was too good a writer to limit or define Vane by aspects of her origin in her own life and personal history. Isn’t this how good fiction works? It is not mere disguised autobiography.
Lastly, I care less that a character, male or female, is positive, and more that the character is compelling and does something interesting. If a female character begins a story having murdered her husband, mother and children, then make me wonder how she did it, and make me intensely curious to see whether she gets away with it.
hovercraft
@Steeplejack (tablet): @Brachiator:
A couple of my pet peeves :
Very unique. The very is unnecessary.
Very excellent. Ditto.
The reason why. I can’t even…..
Brachiator
@Steeplejack (tablet):
This is deliberate, or lazy, as you wish.
“Situation” adds nothing. And when various events are turned into “situations,” it’s just lazy and stupid.
“It’s a fourth down event.”
It’s freakin fourth down!
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Kind of like a gap year?
I think that Obama’s daughter is not going to college immediately after high school graduation.
I could see people taking a public service gap year or two after high school, after two years of college or junior college, or immediately after graduation from college.
A change could do them good.
waysel
@Brachiator: ‘Again, Vane’s origins was in some ways wish fulfillment for Sayers.’ This has been revealed in DLSs personal diary?
Dmbeaster
@Villago Delenda Est: LOL. Its basically an admission that they are desparate to find any new demographic that might be persuaded to vote Trump. All other reasonable choices are unavailable, so lets fantasize about being rescued by militant Amish.
Villago Delenda Est
“Also, too” is ongoing mocking of the vile grifting bimbo.
different-church-lady
The “plural singular”: when someone says “these ones” when just saying “these” would be sufficient.
And “focus in”. You don’t focus “in” to anything. You simply focus on it. You can, however, zoom in on something if you like.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Yes, precisely. You have my full support.
I’m typically one of those people who argues against too rigid an adherence to grammar and against people who complain about new word coinages and usage.
But I draw the line at
threefour things:1) depriving a word of all definition by having it mean both itself *and* its opposite;
2) ambiguous pronouns, unless used purposefully for comic effect; and,
3) misspellings that mimic other words, for instance, loose for lose; and
4) stupid words with ambiguous or incorrect meanings.
In other words, I’m fine with people doing whatever they want with language as long as they maintain clarity. Use ain’t instead of am not, use teh and pwn instead of the and own, use normalcy and cromulent, it’s all okay.
But use the word irregardless (the double negative muddies the meaning, on top of it being a stupid word); spell lose as loose; use a pronoun for the name two names back instead of the one immediately preceding it; or use literally when you mean figuratively; and my ire goes up through the figurative and proverbial roof.
bluefish
Time to bring back the guilds. If only that were possible. That said, first rate vocational and master skills in trade opportunities are vital and one is grateful to see some very bright young people, who are not cut out for college for a variety of reasons, making use of them. More of that, please.
A college degree has become the old high school diploma for many, many years now. A basic requirement for far too many.
Katrina really, really tests me. Every time I see her on my screen and hear the bile that comes out of her mouth, I wanna scream obscenities. Sometimes I do. Most times they get muttered. Because nobody’s perfect and I need more Walter.
Where is that adorable creature and what exactly is he up to?
jl
@aimai: Thanks for info.
@Betty Cracker: You are a grammar totalitarian. And see how nice I am? I am literally not even going Godwin on your grammar mean-person ass! (We American got no grammar Academy. Live Free or Die!)
J R in WV
@Robert Sneddon:
So, I’m not an author. A Mary Sue story is one with a hero woman in it? And this is, wrong, somehow?
Now I’m confused… if heroic women are bad, how will Hillary win? Or am I so confused, I don’t know what’s going on… I guess I am.
NoraLenderbee
@maryQ:
I would literally like to marry this comment and have its baby.
Tenar Darell
@Aardvark Cheeselog: I’m kinda tempted to read the comments which are hopefully ripping the NYT a new one, but is it worth it?
KS in MA
@Mnemosyne: Cool!
Frank McCormick
@Richard Mayhew: And Richard replies with the win.
catclub
@bluefish:
So if there were more Walter posts you would yell even more obscenities, rather than mumble them?
KS in MA
@Elmo: Extra points to you for using “him” in the quotation about casting the first stone. :)
J R in WV
@Feathers:
So, unless a story is distorted into abnormality, twisted beyond recognition, it isn’t a “Mary Sue” story. So the Honor Harrington novels aren’t Mary Sue stories… I guess that’s good, and I know a little more about strange writing habits. And Hillary is allowed to be a hero in OUR story, and win the office of the President! Hurray.
Beebop
How about “ask” used as a noun? It’s ubiquitous in the business world and I’m trying to forget about it, but it’s just so wrong.
I was in a meeting where the host got into a pretzel situation because he forgot that the word “request” exists. It was something like “…so we can understand what is being asked by your ask.”
catclub
Speaking of words with different meanings:
bluefish
@catclub: I could go for some straight up barking. To be interpreted or not. My kid would encourage me to just shut up.
Technocrat
@catclub:
He has enough hubris to say when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
Yeah, that’s what he meant.
#Trumpsplainin
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@J R in WV:
My interpretation is that a Mary Sue character is simply wildly, ridiculously gifted and talented. She can field strip an assault weapon like a Navy SEAL; she can hotwire a Saturn V rocket, is a seventh-degree blackbelt in Kung Fu, can perform advanced math in her head, and bake a perfect quiche while reading the directions in Chinese. Not unlike Bond or Bourne in a way. Her flaws are few and ridiculously cute anyway.
boatboy_srq
@Punchy: If they’re just coasting until November…
boatboy_srq
@Beebop: With you. Same for “gift” as a verb.
Original Lee
@Dmbeaster: Apropos, I discovered this weekend that Amish romance novels are a thing.
lollipopguild
@germy: In the good old days alot of people left school after 6th grade or 8th grade. One of my aunts married a man who went to work at a real estate title co. when he was 12 years old as an office boy, he ended up running the company and was quite well off. Very nice person also. That type of job vanished decades ago.
lollipopguild
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Do you have her dating profile?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@J R in WV: Man, if Honor Harrington hasn’t become a Mary Sue, the term has no meaning.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
Let’s help Hannitry here:
“The Representive strangled the intern to death before literally dumping her body in the park like so much trash because anything not male and white is less than human in his mind”
maryQ
@catclub: please promise to shoot me if these people get elected.
Technocrat
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Jesus, you guys are killing me here. Leave Steadholder Duchess Harrington alone!
John Weiss
@RaflW: It was a sad day when high schools sold off their workshops and bought computer gear. What were they thinking? Computer skills are well and good but we’ll always need craftsmen.
amk
Literally a projection from sean klannity.
John Weiss
@NonyNony: Say Bub (Bubette) words mean things. Sure, context is important but word meaning is more important. Really.
JGabriel
@J R in WV:
Mary Sue (or Marty Stu) are terms that come from fanfic. Basically, they are avatars which serve the purpose of wish fulfillment or power fantasy for the fanfic writer. So they’re usually wildly gifted and, amazingly, also perfect love interests for the protagonist.