The Outbreak

The disease is spreading.

It's the disease that grips the brains of educated people and reprograms them so they have NO IDEA HOW TO USE THE WORD LITERALLY. Yesterday a reporter on the BBC’s football website accidentally wrote that a shot came from 25m yards. When someone pointed out his error he laughed about it and said, yes, if it really was 25m yards it would LITERALLY HAVE BEEN A ROCKET OF A SHOT.

Even if the ball had travelled 25 million yards it still would have been just a ball. There may have been a rocket attached to it, but nothing could literally have made it a rocket of a shot.

One of the good things about teaching foreigners is that they aren’t affected by this disease. It’s one that is restricted to the English speaking world and is most rampant in Britain and the US.

In case you’re worried that you might be infected, here are some examples of when NOT to use the word:

If you’re talking about measurements of time, distance or size you cannot use literally. It took five minutes, you live 200 metres away and a blue whale is twice as heavy as the largest dinosaur. You cannot precede any of these facts with the word literally.

And while I struggle with this bombardment of ignorance, another outbreak is ravaging the English-speaking world. This time it’s the word ‘chaos’. Yet again it’s the snow that has caused Britain to completely forget what this word actually means.

Travel chaos. You hear this a lot. Rail networks disrupted: chaos. Motorways jammed: chaos. Grit supplies running low: chaos.

Travelling very slowly through the snow is not chaos. OH MY GOD! THAT CAR SKIDDED OFF THE ROAD! CHAOS! No, that’s just an accident. When the unthinkable happened and the entire London bus network was closed, rabid journalists threw chaos around like it was a snowball fight. This closure was, in fact, the very opposite of chaos. We knew what to do. A plan was formulated. Just because it was hugely disruptive doesn’t make it chaotic.

And I know what you’re thinking…has anyone uttered the phrase ‘literally chaos’? I haven’t seen it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.