Katie C

My biggest Pet Peeve, Literally

            My biggest pet peeve is when people use the word “literally” after everything they say. There are many people today who express their feelings in the wrong way. The word “literally” means in a literal manner or sense. People now do not understand how they are misusing the word and it had become quite a problem. The misuse of the word “literally” drives me crazy. The sound of the word makes me want to puke and pull my hair slowly out at the same time. When I hear this very special word used out of context I cringe a little and count how many times the word is misused, it isn’t very fun once you get into the twenties.

            I have a best friend we call her Carrot. My best friend Carrot misuses this word in so many ways she possibly can. I love my best friend, don’t get me wrong but this “literally” has to stop. One day Carrot and I were at Burton doing nothing as usual so we started writing each other letters, at the end of class we read them out loud to each other. This is what Carrots letter to me said;

“Dear,

            Katie I just wanted you to know you’re literally the best. I love you so very much. I literally don’t know what I would do without your smiling face every day. I just thought you should know I love you but I also want you to know why so here it goes. I love you because you’re literally the craziest person I’ve ever met. I think that you literally need to stop when you do that double chin thing. This summer were literally going to hang out every day. Okay well I wanted you to know how much I love you.

Sincerely,

            Carrot”

After reading this I cringed and had an awfully disgusted look on my face.

“You seriously need to stop using the word literally incorrectly all the time!”

“I’m sorry.” Carrot said “I’m just so used to always using it and hearing it used incorrectly.”

The word literally has been misused for over one hundred years. The word has been so misused over these hundred years that it’s beginning to lose its meaning. The word is misused by everyone, even Charles Dickens wrote, in Nicholas Nickleby that a character “had literally fastened his eyes on the culprit.” The correct use of this word would be “figuratively” not “literally”.

            The misuse of this world covers all around the world. There are many people who are not informed of this misuse of words. There can be many ways to stop this misuse and to get back the true meaning of the word “literally”. One way is to inform people all over the world to tell them that “literally” doesn’t mean what they really think it does and teach them what the word really means and when to appropriately use the word. Another way is for school boards all around the world come together to talk about the misuse of all words and put that in an English teacher’s lesson plan. The last way is to just help people out and tell them when they misuse the word “literally”.