literally gave birth
October 14th, 2005 by Fitz
Reader Joy Nyenhuis writes:
Hey literally weblog people! I came across an amusing use of “literally”. A passage from William Davis’s Lincoln’s Men about how Civil War troops regarded Lincoln as a father:
In the regiments of the United States Colored Troops,
to which he had literally given birth, there was no
doubt Lincoln sat at the head of the table.
Thanks, Joy! I was able to verify this by searching the book at Amazon:
It’s pretty astounding that something like this could pass through the editing process (or through his birth canal)!
October 15th, 2005 at 12:14 am
I just had to do this one right away, because photoshopping Abraham Lincoln’s head onto a pregnant woman sounded like so much fun.
December 5th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
Should not that be “William Davis’ Lincoln’s Men” instead? It is a bit ironic to find a goof like that on a blog about grammer.
December 5th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
@cabbey: both forms are valid, it’s a matter of “house style”. For example, the AP uses “Davis’” and the Chicago Manual of Style uses “Davis’s”. I was taught the former use, but I think I like the latter use better as it is unambiguous and more closely matches the pronunciation.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I know I’m really late with this, but I just discovered this cite by cabbey and was a bit amused about the irony of his/her misspelling of the word “grammar” in his/her comment about the punctuation used in the original article.