If there’s one thing prescriptivists hate, it’s children. I mean, it’s bad enough the way that babies trample the rules of English with their run-on babbling, or how toddlers perversely insist on using their neologism goed as the past tense of go when went has been standard for centuries. But I suppose you can partially dismiss those as products of insufficient education; there’s still hope for them. What really gets the prescriptivists’ goat is older children — those needlessly rebellious teenagers. Here they are, just about as educated as they’ll get, and they’re abusing the language left and right.
See, in the prescriptivists’ day, teens understood the meaning of words and respected the sanctity of their parents’ language. Far be it from them to make up new words when old ones would suffice; everyone knows that slang is a worthless invention of the pop-swilling, face-stuffing youth of today. These rotten kids today muck it all up, wantonly using words for purposes directly counter to their God-given meanings. Exhibit A for the prosecution: the use of literally in situations where figuratively is meant.
I intend to do a longer post later about why, despite the ire of prescriptivists, this use of literally isn’t so bad; in fact, it actually makes some sense. But for now, to soften people up to this seemingly indefensible claim, I’d like to quote to you from Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette (1958 edition), which I found myself reading the other morning:
“And he literally dances attention on the girl he has brought to the party…”
This is not meant at all literally. What would it even mean to literally “dance attention” on someone? It frankly sounds quite painful. (By the way, I looked on Google to see if “dances attention” was used anywhere else, in case it was a weird 1950s idiom, but it doesn’t seem to have been.)
It is odd that Amy Vanderbilt would use literally non-literally, given the highfalutin’ tone of the book. This is an etiquette book, not a grammar book, and there are a lot of other dreadfully pressing matters of etiquette to deal with (such as what to do if you are given an audience with the Pope), so it doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about proper language use. What it does have, though, is oddly specific and distinctly cranky. For instance, it derides Is she expecting? as a “particularly vulgar” way of asking if someone’s pregnant, and says that there is “something very low class” about girlfriend, which she claims “in all cases it is better to substitute ‘girl, who is a friend of mine’.” So someone who wouldn’t deign to use girlfriend has no problem with a non-literal use of literally? Wow. That’s a surprise.
I don’t know if this reflects a general willingness to use non-literal literally in the 1950s or if it is peculiar to Amy Vanderbilt, but I was honestly shocked to see it used by someone who fusses over minor grammatical points. So is Amy Vanderbilt wrong or are the kids today right? I’ll try to give my opinion before the month is out, but in the meantime, what’s your take?
[Update: Commenter Emily and Jan Freeman over at the Boston Globe figured out that the source of this construction is 'dancing attendance', which apparently actually was in common use. I still don't think I've ever heard it, and I still don't quite understand it, but at least Amy Vanderbilt didn't spin it out of whole cloth. All the same, the key point remains: one cannot literally dance attention on anything.]
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May 6, 2008 at 11:23 am
Dan
Is this forthcoming literally post tied to the release of Literally, the Best Language Book Ever: Annoying Words and Abused Phrases You Should Never Use Again? Because I thought I smelled blood in the water…
May 6, 2008 at 11:27 am
serapio
There is something very low-class about suggesting that a lady of such refined culture meant something other than what she said. Clearly, she was referring to the way letters sometimes dance in ones vision, such as when one is attending a party and attending to a girl who is a friend.
What is the euphemism for “expecting”?
May 6, 2008 at 11:58 am
Gabe
Dan: It wasn’t originally. I was totally strapped for ideas about what to write about next, and needed something because Language Log just linked here and I didn’t want Language Loggers to get bored with Cyrillic emoticons. So I went through the Vanderbilt book to see if it said anything about grammar, and, lo and behold, this line jumped out. I’m sure I noticed it in large part because of the prominence of literally in the title of the new book.
I should reveal that I neither want to bury literally, nor to praise it. I think it’s a pretty reasonable usage on its own merits, but it is symptomatic of over-reliance on exaggeration as a rhetorical device. And for that reason I’ll agree that its usage should be curbed. So I think I agree with the book in the end.
serapio: You have properly shamed me, and I think my intimation that Amy Vanderbilt might not have meant what she said reveals that I am distinctly a member of the unwashed masses who use the wrong glasses for wine and who wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how not to embarrass myself in front of the Pope. I forget now what the proper way to ask if someone is pregnant is, but I think it was “Are you pregnant or fat?”.
May 6, 2008 at 12:26 pm
mgroves
I can forgive incorrect use of ‘literally’ every once and a while, but it pains me when it is overused, and overused incorrectly. Also, this: http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001207.html
May 6, 2008 at 12:47 pm
mike
All right on, except your chronology for the ruination of English due to the slovenly — and especially the “lazy” — habits of the young. The descent of English into an argot just above the grunting of monkeys has not been, as you suggest, the result of the “pop-swilling, face-stuffing youth of today.” Older prescriptivists can tell you with great confidence that English was ruined instead by the lax standards and anything-goes attitudes of the 60s. In their day (which I guess would have been the Eisenhower years), kids studied grammar and respected the rules, by golly. (For example, there were evidently no punctuation errors in the 50s, which must have been a much calmer decade for the likes of Lynn Truss.)
May 13, 2008 at 6:55 am
renaissanceguy
Ms Vanderbilt’s statement was rather close to the literal truth. When a man dances well, he does inspire other people in the room to pay attention to his partner.
It’s a whole lot better than the usual “I literally laughed my head off” or “I’m literally starving to death.”
I’m not much of a prescriptivist, but I mourn the loss of precision.
One can no longer write things like:
My friend got locked into the aquarium and literally slept with the fishes.
Stephen literally broke Adrienne’s heart when he smashed her locket.
Farmer Jones literally kicked the bucket when he died during the milking.
The supermodel was literally hot when she got the flu.
Alas!
Likewise, one can no longer write things like:
The first time I made love, it was an awesome experience. (Awesome seems to mean “pretty good” these days.)
That sugar is totally fine. (Which would mean it’s okay, rather than all of it was ground into small granules.)
May 13, 2008 at 9:10 am
John
One can no longer write things like:
My friend got locked into the aquarium and literally slept with the fishes.
Stephen literally broke Adrienne’s heart when he smashed her locket.
Farmer Jones literally kicked the bucket when he died during the milking.
The supermodel was literally hot when she got the flu.
Sure one can. You just did, and I think I understood you. When you say “no longer”, how long are you talking, exactly? “Literally” has been used figuratively since the late 18th century.
The idea that we’ve lost precision when a word changes meaning or takes on a new meaning makes no sense. If that was true, then we’d have no precision left. I think it’s much more sensible to say that if we want to communicate clearly, we’ll find the words in which to do it, no matter what language we speak.
May 14, 2008 at 11:13 am
renaissanceguy
John, I have had people misunderstand me when I have used in its traditional or its dictionary sense. I have no doubt that you understand what I meant, but I am certain that many people would scratch their heads and say, “Huh?”
People may have misused “literally” since the late 18th Century, but during my 44 years I’ve seen it’s misuse become more and more common. And, sorry to be elitist, but the less education the speaker has the more likely, I’ve noticed, it is for him or her to misuse it.
So, tell me what word now means “as actually stated” if literally can mean either “as literally stated” or “figuratively, not as acutally stated”?
May 14, 2008 at 12:07 pm
John
“as actually stated.” “literally” can also work with the right intonation.
You could be right about it becoming more common, but I am skeptical. We all experience the recency illusion.
May 14, 2008 at 12:19 pm
John
oh yeah… “literally” is not the only word with two contradictory meanings. There are plenty: trim, dust, sanction, cleave, fast, oversight, and many others. No one complains about them.
May 22, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Emily
I agree whole heartedly with renaissanceguy. Try “I literally knocked his socks off.” If his socks, did, actually, come off, no one will appreciate that. :(
Also to “dance attendance” is a familiar phrase to me. Did it—literally—not appear on Google?