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Old 10-30-2012, 03:17 PM   #13
kaldaniels
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Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: Things people say that irritate you

Quote:
Originally Posted by jhiller21 View Post
This one is incredibly overused (and wrongly used) by new reporters.

I remember during hurricane Katrina, the idiot standing in the wind said "New Orleans is LITERALLY a ghost town"

So, what there's ghosts flying all over downtown and scaring people? No one knows what "literal" means anymore.
That meaning of the word "literally" is now an accepted form as far as Merriam Webster is concerned.

So it is in-bounds for the "new reporters" you speak of to use it in that way. (I would argue that as long as the audience knows you don't truly mean it to be actually true, you are ok) i.e. not a person in the world thought the reporter really meant there were ghosts flying around.

Last edited by kaldaniels; 10-30-2012 at 03:20 PM.
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