Once again it's Wednesday and I'm sitting in an airport without too much time to go into an in depth Words On Wednesday problem. So I thought I'd ask you--what are some words you are sick of seeing misused OR overused?

Not long ago Elizabeth wrote in the comments that she'd like to see me address the use of the word "literally." She used the example of someone saying, "I literally had kids coming out my ears!"

Friends, there's a part of the body where children normally exit the mother and it is NOT the ears. If this is your problem, you definitely, LITERALLY need to see both an obstetrician and an ENT specialist, and possibly a plastic surgeon. You've got issues that we can't deal with on Wednesdays.

If you're going to use the word "literally" (and I suggest you keep it to a minimum since it's overused even when it's used correctly), please confine its use to occasions when something is literally true. "We were literally bankrupted by the onslaught of medical bills and had to start over." And NOT "We were literally disgusted to death by the results of the recent election."

Almost. But not literally.

Anyway...do you have a pet peeve along this line? Come on, fill up my comments box with something other than election issues--we're moving on! Let's confine this one to usage issues and not spelling, and I'll take a couple of the best ones and comment further once I'm back in pocket.

Literally. ;-)

Labels: Language