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Being Literal About Literally

Jul 23, 2014
by Caroline Miller
Ammon Shea, Bad English, grammatical correctness, use of literally
6 Comments

Unfortunately for language purists the “grammatically challenged” continue to contaminate the way we write and speak and have done so since the first, primitive grunt.  I confess I am one of the challenged.

 Recently, I submitted a manuscript for technical review and it was returned with numerous corrections.  For example, I’d described one character’s face as being  “wreathed in a smile.”  Wreathed, the editor noted, means  to encase or warp which can’t be done to a smile.  Intimidated, I changed the words to read, “her face was brightened by a smile.”   The description is now without error but I find it too “dental” for my liking. 

 Author Ammon Shea points out in his book, Bad English, that some writers, mostly the famous, have a stomach for defying the tyrants of language etiquette.  Vladimir Nabokov in Invitation to a Beheading wrote of his character:  “And with his eyes he literally scoured the corner of the cell.”  (Excerpted from Bad English published by Penguin Random House Company 2014 in The Week, June 20, 2014, pg. 41)   Here, Nabokov uses literally as an intensifier which is a no-no in refined grammar. The word to be used is  figuratively, as the author does not intend for  readers to imagine his protagonist has plucked out his eyes and begun scrubbing the walls with them.  Likewise, Mark Twain chortles that after bamboozling his friends into paying him to white wash a fence, Tom Sawyer, from the novel by the same title, was “literally rolling in wealth.”  Well, again, not actually.

 In his or her effort to  communicate, a writer’s nature is to play with language.  Sometimes words are stretched and twisted like pliable dough not to appease grammarians but to amuse, enlighten and dazzle the reader.  To these ends, correctness must take a back seat.  If writers cowered before the rules of grammar, which purist presume should never change, style would suffer and we’d be subjected to the boring, repetitive sentences of stories like, Dick, Jane and their dog Spot.

Dick and Jane and Spot

Courtesy of amazon.com

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6 Comments
  1. Bill Whitlatch July 23, 2014 at 9:12 am Reply
    Can license be poetic ?
    • Caroline Miller July 23, 2014 at 9:25 am Reply
      Bill, I don't know. I'll have to check with the department of motor vehicles.
  2. Pamela July 23, 2014 at 5:59 pm Reply
    I'm of the opinion that in creative writing, as long as you are aware of your transgressions and are using them with purpose and intent, anything goes! Writing isn't interesting until it takes some chances and busts some conventions.
    • Caroline Miller July 23, 2014 at 6:03 pm Reply
      Well said, Pamela.
  3. Annie Stratton August 4, 2014 at 5:26 pm Reply
    Caroline, those hard-nose "grammarians" need to listen to a wonderful interview with the lead of the Oxford dictionary's team of lexicologists. She stated flatly that language as it is used by its speakers and writers is what drives the dictionary, not the other way round. The dictionaries often lag behind, especially with a language as dynamic as English. Imagine what we would have ended up with had Shakespeare had an editor like the one you encountered. YOU were correct; he was wrong. A touch of OCD, perhaps?
    • Caroline Miller August 4, 2014 at 5:30 pm Reply
      OCD? Good one Annie.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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