literally bring networks to their knees
May 5th, 2006 by Fitz
Dan Bornstein found the following:
Wired News
At issue is whether the draft spec is far enough along that companies can make products that will provide that performance but still be compatible with each other and with older Wi-Fi equipment. Wireless maker D-Link had planned to release its own draft n products in April but pulled out because of performance and compatibility issues.Airgo’s Borison warned that the new 11n products could mess with current 11b and 11g networks by trying to transmit data on the same radio channels. “It will literally bring b/g networks to their knees,” he said.
I’m just trying to imagine wireless networks with knees. It’s not working.
May 5th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Perhaps he meant the knees in their performance curves. That would actually even make sense.
May 5th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
It could make for a cute cartoon mascot, though.
May 7th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Since, bringing networds “to their knees” is figurative in the first place, isn’t this what is actually at issue? for example, if he said, “It will *really* bring b/g networks to their knees”, you wouldn’t argue that b/g networks couldn’t (in *reality*) have knees and thus be brought to their knees would you? so it seems a little silly to complain about what is used as an emphasizer in a phrase that is figurative anyway
cheers!
May 7th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
@keti: you’re new here aren’t you.
On this blog we argue that using “literally” as an emphasizer undesireable (if not incorrect).
May 16th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Yeah, I’ve never been to this site before, but the concept isn’t exactly hard to pick up. When you say ‘literal’, you are supposed to mean, oddly enough, ‘literal’. The word is descriptive, not emphatic. Even if it was emphatic, it would still be stupid to use it in this way, because the sentence only had one subject so it isn’t necessary to emphasise a particular one.
May 27th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Your blog is beautiful, it makes me want to weep with joy and skip around fields of poppies. We have a small thread on our grammar blog dedicated to the use of the word literally. With your permission, I’ll link you on our blog.
http://i-care-too-much.blogspot.com/
June 3rd, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Here’s one:
In October 1929, the onset of The Depression literally killed the sales of all non-essential commodities, and not until the late 1930’s did RCA Victor again experience significant sales of phonographs.
http://www.victor-victrola.com/ABOUT.htm
(2nd paragraph from the end, second-to-last line)
June 12th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
“literally” has been used as an intensifier for figurative expressions since the 18th century.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002611.html
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I am bringing wireless to my knees right now (literally), since I’m using a laptop on my lap. Not the sense they meant it, but I could see how the phrase might work.