Asymmetrical Information

dammit, I'm not a subscriber. What's it all about?

Hunh?

The above made you bust a gut? I am so confused. Help! What did the article say, was it just the open letter or was there something else?

Kate,

That "kstreetfriend" guy is a guy who posts that same message on hundreds of blogs. It has nothing to do with the post. He's hijacking people's comments sections to air his unrelated personal grievances.

He should be hunted down and whipped.

Jeez...I stop paying attention for a little while and goof-balls take over. Thanks Russell. I didn't think it looked right.

Good, I thought the funny piece was going to be some satire of affirmative action where we learned at the end that the wronged party was actually white, not black, as we'd been led to believe all along.

Glad I didn't read it all the way through!

What's more humorous than a good legal filing?

Great, just when I got my hopes up about busting a gut of my own, I am slapped in the face by the Capitalist Roaders at the Weekly Standard. Right-wing teasers. Scrooges. Bastards.

I got fished in too... That'll teach me to read chronologically! (But if true, what a ludicrous and pathetic organization that "law" school must be.)

Anybody busting a gut yet, and willing to share with a cheap so-and-so such as meself?

Aaarrggghhh! I just wasted ten minutes reading that looking for teh funny.

Bolie IV

You can read the beginning of the article here, I think:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Check.asp?idArticle=4990&r=fmrkf

Yes, it seems literally every time someone uses the word 'literally,' they're speaking figuratively...

You laugh but I am pretty sure I read in one of Dave Barry's columns about a college student "literally exploding". Come to think of it it might have been a cow. But stranger things have happened.

For those who haven't followed the link, it's about non-literal use of the word "literally" ... and not about widows and orphans being made homeless after all.

Now I'm getting concerned. Jane has been undergoing surgery for literally two days! How is Galt's gut?

His spam is kind of funny if you read legalese. But it wasn't what Jane was linking.

Having led us all down the path of wasting 10 or 15 minutes of our time why not just delete thiis whole topic?

It leads nowhere but a post that requires membership, then we're confronted with the time wasting post of a spammer, thinking it leads somewhere (and is related to the originall link).

Is there some especial reason for wasting so much *precious* time of your loyal readers when you can simply hit the "Delete" key?

(just kidding)

But what is funny? That's unfair. The poast from the spammer is boring. Why not at least share with your readers what was so funny and accept a slap on the wrist for linking to a "membership required" (and one which requires cold cash) in the first place? Hmm...??? :)

Galt get gut well soon ! :)

Because I have no respect for copywrite law, and because working at a college has one perk: the ability to abuse lexis-nexus:

SECTION: CASUAL Vol. 10 No. 13

LENGTH: 774 words

HEADLINE: Literally Exasperated;
Stephen F. Hayes, bratwurst.

BYLINE: Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

BODY:

AT SOME POINT in the near future I will become a bratwurst. I owe this startling realization to Naomi Judd. The singer-actress-philosopher sat down with Larry King recently to promote Naomi's Breakthrough Guide: 20 Choices to Transform Your Life. Not content to mimic the mawkish language of the self-help set, she promised to take the conversation to the "neuroscientist level." Then she declared: "We literally become whatever we think about all day."

Literally?

Judd also speaks of "literally looking in the Mirror of Truth," and has told a national television audience, "I literally take you by the hand in this book."

I'm not sure how that works. But it is not nearly as evocative as the question actress Jamie Lee Curtis posed recently in an appearance on Canadian television. Curtis, fresh from the success of her own book, I'm Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem, was making the rounds to promote her follow-up work, It's Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel.

"How many college students," she wanted to know, "do we hear in their freshman year literally explode? They explode with drugs and alcohol, they explode with sex, they explode with eating, they explode with not being able to get work done on time. . . . These people are exploding."

The misuse of the word "literally" is a problem not limited to female entertainers. It has been the subject of debate for decades. The literal meaning of a word or phrase, according to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, is one that adheres to "fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression" and is "free from exaggeration or embellishment." But the word has been misused for so long that most lexicographers have simply given up. Many dictionaries now recognize "literally" as a generic intensifier--thus justifying the use of "literally" when its opposite, "figuratively," is intended.

It is easy to see why the authorities are throwing in the towel. During lunch with an old friend, he told me about a comedian who was "literally side-splitting." And then a concert that "literally knocked my socks off." He was "literally on the fence" about gay marriage and had spent so much time at work he had "literally become one with my computer." By the end of the meal I literally had to hold my tongue to keep from saying anything. I got several strange looks.

Even people who talk for a living are apt to make this error. But I will not capitulate. I will continue to take literally literally. So when CNN's Jack Cafferty says he's "literally on pins and needles," I understand that to be an explanation for his sour (but strangely likable) early-morning demeanor.

In my literal world, Fox News Channel's Rita Cosby inadvertently provided the most compelling reason I've heard to ban cameras from the courtroom. Ticking off a litany of setbacks for Scott Peterson in his neverending trial, she came to "possibly the biggest blow of all," in which "court observers saw a key defense witness literally melt down on the stand." Over the summer, NBC's Katie Couric reported from the sweltering heat of the Athens Olympics that "it's so hot, my brain is literally fried." This admission may explain her subsequent campaign coverage.

The confusion continued even on Election Day. CNN's Ed Henry described South Dakota Democrats "literally at this hour combing through voting rolls in precincts." Few people know this, but South Dakota keeps its voter lists on hair.

When Dennis Hastert implied that Osama bin Laden might favor the Democratic ticket, John Edwards attacked his musical inclinations. "Literally, in the last 24 hours Denny Hastert, the speaker of the House, has joined the fear-mongering choir."

But bin Laden wasn't nearly as scary if you believed the analysis of Canadian TV's Beverly Thompson. When the al Qaeda leader popped up two days before the election, Thompson wondered if this meant he was "literally a jack-in-the-box."

As the presidential race tightened, Fox News Channel's John Gibson said the candidates were "literally neck and neck." Perhaps because of this proximity, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, possibly drawing on his years as a cop in Philadelphia, wanted Kerry to get physical with Bush in the debates. "I think if Kerry can make the stakes really heavy and focus on Iraq . . . he can probably wipe the smile off the president's face, literally. And that may hurt the president."

Matthews also saw something I missed in the second debate. He "thought it was interesting," he said, "when [moderator] Charles Gibson was literally steam-rollered by the president."

That must have hurt Charles Gibson. Literally.

--Stephen F. Hayes

Now I'm worried. You have been gone so long that I have become concerned about your gut (or guts). Please get well! I hope its not your appendix, I still have mine but a friend of mine busted his and he was layed up for a week. That was 10 years ago and I am sure the treatment has been advanced since then but I am sure it is still something not to be desired. Just to be safe I will put you on the list for Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, Pastor Dave will pray healing down on you.

I hope you're not really sick. :*{

I think the damage was too great and the doctors had to perform a gutectomy.

(and I wish someone would get off their ass and delete the second post here, which I wasted entirely too much time on thinking it was related to the link).

"literally at this hour combing through voting rolls in precincts."

"Literally" here modifies "at this hour", not "combing". It's still a pleonasm, since it's hard to understand what could be meant figuratively by "at this hour", but it's not literally incorrect like the rest of the examples.

If anyone needs a good way to literally say literally, in the face of this rampant abuse, maybe "strictly speaking" would work.

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