Perhaps the most common of these errors is the use of the word "literally" followed (or preceded) by an exaggeration. Here are a couple of examples:
The running back literally flew down the field.This error makes my blood boil.* Unless the running back stopped in mid-play to board an aircraft and the fridge was loaded with neutronium, these statements just aren't true. If you use "literally" in your sentence, the rest of that sentence must be your best estimate of the actual facts under discussion.
I tell you that refrigerator we moved must have weighed a million pounds, literally.
* Note how I didn't preface my hyperbole with "literally." See, it's not that difficult.
Two words: "epicenter" and "penultimate." (I know; sentence fragment.) Greco-latinate prefixes aren't always harmelss intensifiers that make their users sound smarter, sometimes, they alter the meanings of the root words. So, "Seattle was the penultimate epicenter of the fancy coffee movement in the US," would be a correct sentence if the second-to-last center of the fancy coffee movement in the US was underneath Seattle.
ReplyDeleteArgh! You have precisely guessed the next two entries in this series. Seriously, I already started the posts to remind me to write them when I had time. Curse you!
ReplyDeleteOops. Sorry. I'm literally the worst blog idea thief ever.
ReplyDelete