literally on the table
October 20th, 2005 by Amber
Seen in the AJC, 10.19.05 (”E-Rate Oversight Criticized”):
One expert said the most likely opportunity for E-rate reform will occur during a rule-making review that the FCC announced in June.
“Literally, everything is on the table,” said Peter Kaplan, regulatory affairs director for Funds for Learning, an E-rate consulting company.
If Atlanta Public Schools spent $59 million on networking equipment, that must be a pretty big table he’s got.
Sadly, the article isn’t available online without paying.
October 20th, 2005 at 10:12 pm
Amber: good catch. “On the table” is an idiom that means “under discussion”. This is clearly incorrect usage. Only by use of a Katamari could that table be cleared.
October 21st, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Except that on a fair reading, “literally” here pretty clearly modifies “everything,” not “on the table.” (Granted this would be even clearer without the comma, but I doubt the speaker dictated the punctuation.)
I say give them the benefit of the doubt. If it said, “Everything is literally on the table,” then you’d have something. And I think you implicitly concede this when you (re)phrase the title the way you did.
Sure, you could read it your way, but then you’re just going out of your way to make mischief, not really catching out a “clearly incorrect usage.”
And let’s not quibble over “literally everything.” It’s not referring to any figurative everything, after all. It’s referring to (literally) everything in the context of the E-rate rules that are under review.
October 21st, 2005 at 4:04 pm
Netxis, I think you’re right. I’ll reclassify this as “unnecessary”.
October 21st, 2005 at 4:06 pm
If I were going to be pedantic, I would argue that the comma changes the meaning of “literally” from modifying “everything” to be a qualifier for the entire clause.
But I won’t.
October 21st, 2005 at 4:47 pm
I agree with Amber: ‘literally’ appears to be de dicto, operating over the clause ‘everything is on the table’, not operating for any specific part within the clause.
Kudos on the katamari reference!
October 21st, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Screw it, I’ll file under both “unnecessary” and “incorrect”.
Here at “Literally, A Web Log” we are like FoxNews: we report, you decide.
Now where did I put that falafel thing…
October 25th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
I’m sure you all already know this but this blog got a mention by Benjamin Zimmer in this Language Log post.
October 25th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
Thanks, actually I had not been notified. Cool.