"...the US financial system was literally melting down."
Really? The financial system was becoming a pool of molten goo, possibly spreading radiation all over its vacinity?
Really? The financial system was becoming a pool of molten goo, possibly spreading radiation all over its vacinity?
1: in a literal sense or manner : actually <took the remark literally> <was literally insane>
2: in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins>
1: almost entirely : nearly
2: for all practical purposes <virtually unknown>
Academics, scientists, and engineers generally understand these details (indeed, Dalton Caldwell almost certainly _does_ know the distinction, being as he was, I gather, a 'Founder/CEO of a Sequoia portfolio company'). Complicated, careful work (in nuclear physics or space launches, for instance) generally depends on this, no doubt.
But outside those domains -- in a personal blog, for instance, or when noodling catfish in the bayou, say -- splitting infinitives might be ok, or even a shibboleth. See Dave Chappelle's analysis on Inside The Actors Studio regarding speaking as a black American.
And, while I don't care to hurtle ad-hominems ad-hoc, if you _are_ going to be pedantic about the minutiae of someone else's considered work, it's possibly worth knowing that the word is 'vicinity'.
In which case, please kill me.
"...the US financial system was literally melting down."
"...the US financial system was seriously melting down."
"...the US financial system was melting down."http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the...
Relevant excerpt:
'As is often the case, though, such "abuses" have a long and esteemed history in English. The ground was not especially sticky in Little Women when Louisa May Alcott wrote that "the land literally flowed with milk and honey," nor was Tom Sawyer turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as "literally rolling in wealth," [...more...] Such examples are easily come by, even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate.'
Given the caliber of authors that have used "literally" for emphasis, I have a hard time standing behind the concept that it's even poor style. We can decide that, moving forward, we'd like to clean up English and use "literally" differently, but calling it a mistake rather than a offense to modern style is inaccurate.
REGARDLESS, I thought this was exactly the kind of thread that Hacker News hated. :|
Metaphorically, I'd say that was fairly accurate if you consider the molten goo to be defaults and the radiation to be bank malaise and bad assets; it also managed to start the same reaction in the EU, which continues to this day.
If you'd say, "the financial system was melting down", that is such a stale metaphor that it might not even trigger any associations with nuclear reactors. "Literally" forces you to stop and think about molten goo and radiation.
And as such, I approve of it (although it is much preferred to use fresh metaphors than to resurrect stale ones.)
1. In a literal manner or sense; exactly: "the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the traffic circle".
2. Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.