Comments on: literally shocked his audience

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:25:08 +0000

Lanny says,
>>I say it is not misuse, but rather merely overuse.

How about “abuse”?

By: Lanny Heidbreder

Lanny Heidbreder — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:27:29 +0000

Quoth Susanne Dunn:

Unnecessary use is, in fact, misuse.

Depends on your definition of the prefix “mis-”. Mis- usually means “wrong” or “incorrect”. As “unnecessary” is not really a synonym for “wrong” or “incorrect,” I say it is not misuse, but rather merely overuse.

By: GDad

GDad — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:40:38 +0000

Bill tasing people. Heh. That figuratively cracks me up.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:15:26 +0000

This is an example where adding “literally” to a sentence does the opposite of what the word is supposed to do. Instead of providing clarity of the author’s meaning, it obscures it. If the author simply said the former President “shocked” his audience, we would presume that the author was trying to tell us that Clinton’s speech caused surprise and distress among audiene members.
We would be very unlikely to jump to the conclusion that, like the great shlocky cinema showman of the 1950s William Castle, Mr. Clinton had arranged to have electrical circuits placed within all the seats of the venue, and at a certain point threw a switch that sent electrical current into the posteriors of audience members (although, in Mr. Clinton’s case, we probably cannot rule out such a scenario!).
But by inserting the word “literally,” we are led to doubt ourselves, and wonder which of the several definitions of the word “shocked” the author intends. I’d suggest a word like “definitely” might work better in this sentence.

By: Susanne Dunn

Susanne Dunn — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:33:49 +0000

Unnecessary use is, in fact, misuse.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:03:08 +0000

Shock is in the dictionary meaning ‘to surprise’ or ‘to make feel upset’, so the word doesn’t have to be a metaphorical reference to electric shocks. The ‘literally’ here is most likely superfluous and isn’t brilliant writing, but it isn’t a literal error.