Opinion: If you literally cannot handle people using this word ... read on | Kate Burridge
Overheard on a tram: “My kids and their mates use it all the time – it’s ‘literally’ this and ‘literally’ that and I’m literally going insane”.The use of the word “literally” can really get under people’s skin.Once an expression gets under people’s skin, as this word clearly has, it seems to pop up everywhere, and the accusations of overuse and misuse are rife.
To dust something can either mean to wipe off dust, or to sprinkle with dust. Seeded means “with seeds” but also “without seeds”. A blunt instrument is dull, not sharp, but a blunt comment may be pointed, and quite sharp. To luck out can mean either to be in a lucky or an unlucky position. The fall-out of this over-egging is verbicide. Dramatic words will wear out and become mundane. So-called “boosters” such as awfully and terribly had strong, even gruesome beginnings, but time has depleted this energy and force. Today both mean little more than “very”.
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