David Bellos addressed this question, in the context of literal translation, in his book Is That A Fish In Your Ear. Having concluded that literal translation is literally impossible (or meaningless) he concluded that the phrase ‘literally true’ came into use in the distant past as a way of indicating that, rather than just being true, the thing spoken of was among those rare things that were worthy of being ‘put into letters’, of being written down.
He went on, perceptively, to say that ‘in a world of near-universal literacy … for the last 2 or 3 generations, where alphabetic script is used for entirely ordinary tasks (to label packaged food, advertise underwear, write blogs, horror comics & pulp fiction), the fact that something is worthy of being written down in letters gives it no added value at all. ‘Literal’ isn’t ‘Word Magic’ any more’
Well the fact that teachers have been trying to teach us not to say it since at least the days when I was in primary school means that the battle was pretty much lost anyway.
So now it is just an ordinary common or garden intensifier. Which may well soon be used only verbally, disappearing completely from the written world.
Verily the very of out time.
Really.
Related posts
Hand to mouth intelligence
Short comms
Hand to mouth intelligence
Short comms
