Literally Illustrate, Please

In my April 26 post I used the parenthetical comment “figuratively, not literally.” It has become part of common use to misuse the word “literally” as emphasis rather, as in “I literally died.” Used in such a phrase the word literally cannot be accurate, but is used as an intensive adjective. But it is better as an intensive than the even lazier and increasingly pervasive use of the expletive “fucking.”* You can be “literally mortified” but not “literally die.” In the hilarious television series Will and Grace one of the funniest expressions Jack McFarland uses (you have to see Sean Hayes to get the humor) is the correct but hyperbolic expression “I would die! I would just die!”

The word that is accurate instead of “literally” is “figuratively” but it has no force if used in a phrase “I would figuratively die.” But let’s look at the difference so everyone understands. We’ll look more at die and death in a couple of weeks.

Literal means in the strict meaning of the word or words: true, factual, or actual. Figurative means not literal, and can mean using a figure of speech or represented by a figure or likeness. It can also mean metaphorical. Metaphorical refers to a specific figure of speech: using a metaphor. It may be true that all metaphorical expressions are figurative, but not all figurative expressions are metaphorical.

A metaphor and a simile are similar. A simile is a comparison using the word “as” or “like,” as in “you eat like an animal.” A metaphor is a direct comparison without use of “like” or “as”: “you are an animal.”

Where did all these words literally come from?

Literal was originally used of scripture, and the opposite was not figurative but mystical or allegorical (you’ll have to wait until next week for the post on those words). It came into use in English in the 1300s from the Old French word literal which came from the Late Latin word literalis (or litteralis). The Latin word for letter is litera. It did not gain its current meaning of exact in essence until the 1590s. Its misuse is long-standing. Etymonline.com provides the following:

Erroneously used in reference to metaphors, hyperbole, etc., even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate “what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense” (1680s), which is opposite to the word’s real meaning and a long step down the path to the modern misuse of it.

We have come to such a pass with this emphasizer that where the truth would require us to insert with a strong expression ‘not literally, of course, but in a manner of speaking’, we do not hesitate to insert the very word we ought to be at pains to repudiate; …such false coin makes honest traffic in words impossible. [Fowler, 1924]

Figurative is also from the 1300s and also comes from the Old French, from figurative. The Old French also got it from Late Latin, from figurativus, which means “of speech.”

Metaphor came later, in the late 1400s, but followed the same path: through Old French (metafore) from Latin (metaphora). But Latin got it from the Greek word metaphora that means transfer. Meta means over or across and pherein means carry or bear. So metaphora literally means to carry over or bear across.

While we’re engaged in etymology: simile also arrived in the late 1300s but directly from the Latin word simile, meaning a like thing or a comparison or parallel. Simile is the neuter form of similis, from which we get the word similar. (I find it interesting that similar arrived in English much later – in the 1560s – but was originally similary and didn’t drop the “y” until the 1610s.)

Etymonline.com has a nice quote from Samuel Johnson with which to end this post: “A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject.”

*I wondered about using asterisks in place of three letters in the word fuck in the first paragraph; it fools no one so you might as well write it out. It’s the same thing for “the n word” in place of nigger. If you think of the word it is indicative of the way your mind works. Using an asterisk or some other construction like “the n word” or “frigging” means you know it’s not right to say it but it came to mind anyway and you can’t come up with a more appropriate word.