I use the word 'literally' like, literally, all the time.
Am I a professional writer who understands that the repetition can lose some readers? Yes.
Am I educated and fully aware of the definition of the word "literally" and the fact that I almost never actually mean "literally" when I say literally? Also, yes.
Do I know it annoys some people? Also, also yes.
Am I going to stop doing it any time soon? ... ... ... I'll take that into careful consideration.
Reddit user matchless2 asked:
"What is a word that people need to stop overusing?"
So here's a whole article full of people who probably literally hate me. (hehehe)
Let's Just Start With The Obvious
"Literally."
- rs_yay
"I saw an ad for a meal kit service that said something like, 'My husband loved the salmon so much it literally killed him!' ”
"RIP husband."
- madamguacamole
"High school teacher here. Sooooo many kids use this every other sentence and don’t even understand the meaning. It’s annoying, to say the least."
- NorwegianMuse
"I was kind of irritated by 'literally' being used figuratively for a while, but then I found out that 'fantastic' used to mean something literally from fantasy."
"It would have been just as wrong to say 'that’s fantastic' if you weren’t talking about a dragon or something."
"Now when I hear it I just think 'language be like that sometimes.' ”
- TheRiverTwice
"I'm literally part of the problem... I let it slip into my vernacular and I can't stop 😩"
- Conscious_Camel4830
GiphyDefine "Influence"
"Influencer."
- B0J0L0
"Influencer cracks me up sometimes."
"Like the other day when someone tried trolling me by calling me an influencer. Ironically at the time he would have been the only person that I had influenced AND he had misread me anyway."
"Are that many people really influenced by 'influencers?' Wasn't the tag snake oil salesman descriptive enough?"
- Justthisguy_yaknow
"They do influence, just negatively."
- real_MainDepth
"Truly a word that has lost any positive connotation to it."
- floweytheflo
There's Usually A Precedent
"Unprecedented."
- stupidmacaroni
"I would like to upvote this comment a million times. I flinch when I hear this word now."
- Lexjude
"The amount of times unprecedented has been used is unprecedented."
- Funktastic34
"Holy hell I hate this word, even reading it makes me angry."
- popcorntongue
"Same. Everyone on TV was using it, 'these unprecedented times, these uncertain times.' "
"JUST CALL IT THE PANDEMIC BRUH."
- stupidmacaroni
"Unless they say it is 'literally unprecedented.' Then you know they’re being for realsies. Because literally."
- GoodAsUsual
Gaslighting Is A Specific Thing
"Gaslighting isn't just another word for lying, it's a specific method of manipulation that involves making a person question their own perception of reality. It doesn't even require lying."
- CupcakeValkyrie
"And gaslighting is purposeful. The abuser is intentionally making you question your reality."
- hoyaheadRN
"It also doesn't just mean that someone is being stubborn or obstinate. If someone unreasonably or irrationally disagrees with you they aren't necessarily gaslighting you."
- 05110909
GiphyNot Neat
"OCD, without actually having OCD."
- nepenthe17
" 'I like putting my dishes away after I wash them, but I'm just OCD like that.' "
- ostentatiousbro
"This is one of my pet peeves."
"My ex mother in law had OCD and it wasn’t about being neat and keeping the cushions straight or lining things up right. It was a debilitating belief that if she didn’t do certain things, that bad things would happen."
- Tendontearer
"I've met people with genuine OCD."
"They don't care about tiles being ill-aligned. They're touching the doorknob in the exact same spot for 37 times to stop something horrible from happening."
- UnoriginalUse
A Versus Anti
"Anti-social."
"Preferring to be alone is to be asocial. Psychopaths are anti-social."
- andbingowashishomo
"Just explained this to my landlord today."
"I am Asocial. A."
"A! Not anti!"
"I am not going to poison your dogs for sure."
- Critical_Macaroon_15
"I’ve been saying this for years, but at this point I feel like it’s one of those situations where the language has evolved."
"I’ve literally never heard anyone say 'asocial', despite it being correct. And I feel like I rarely hear 'anti-social' used to describe actual anti-social behavior. It’s far more often used incorrectly."
- imaginaryblues
War
"War."
"We’ve got a war against nearly everything. It waters down the tragedy of real war."
"Such as: We’ve got a struggle against obesity, not a war. I’m not near as scared of being in the middle of a bunch of fat people as I am of being in the middle of a real war."
- traws06
"I’m not sure how common this is outside the US, but a few years ago (it’s still sort of around now, but its real heyday was almost a decade ago), the phrase 'War on Christmas' was all the rage."
"The inciting attacks of this conflict? Starbucks changed the design on their cups, more people embraced the phrase 'Happy Holidays', and schools changed 'Christmas break' to 'Winter Break'."
"Because of that, people started protesting by either boycotting Starbucks or ordering under the name 'Merry Christmas,' discussions were had on the news, and at least two full-length movies were made about this new 'threat' to our way of life: 'Christmas with a Capital C' in 2010, and 'Last Ounce of Courage' in 2012."
- Aegis_et_Vanir
Giphy-Gate
"Anything -Gate"
"PizzaGate, Bountygate, now SlapGate.. plus 12 million others I’m forgetting."
- Xennial_Potato
"I will make an exception if Matt Gaetz is involved in a scandal, especially involving a fence."
- Dexaan
"I support calling the allegations against him PizzaGaetz, but agree that '-gate' in general needs to stop. I actually wonder if people think '-gate' is somehow synonymous with 'scandal.' ”
- NC_Goonie
Something To Be Solved
“Problematic.”
"The word is supposed to connote that something is difficult to resolve or decide, as in a problem to be solved."
"It was used to point out that ideas needed more debate because questions were left unanswered, or apparent contradictions were unresolved. It was a word needed more in academia than in daily discussion."
"Now it often seems to mean something along the lines of 'I do not like this person or their beliefs'."
- TradeDeadline
Sports
“Adversity when in the context of sports."
"For instance, if a football team loses two games in a row and wins the third the Coach goes on TV and says 'this team knows how to pull through adversity' and I roll my eyes every time."
"That's not adversity. That's sports."
- Upstairs-Try6583
GiphyI know you read through this list with more examples popping into your head the whole way through.
So tell us what they were!
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Redditor bluewings23 wanted to hear about all the eccentric things we do at parties to keep the attention focused on us, so they asked:
"What’s your party trick?"
Gone
Homer Simpson Burn GIF by Dallas FuelGiphy"Disappearing."
saello
"You say hello to the host, go to a corner and play with your phone for a while, then walk out the door when no one is watching and text the the host 'sorry, I have an emergency. Thank you for the invite.' Works like a charm all the time."
Mariuxpunk007
Cherries
"If there are cherries at the function, I typically tell ppl I can tie a cherry stem into a knot, in my mouth, in under 10 seconds. I have won betting money doing this a number of times. And it's as simple as tying a knot in a cherry stem and putting I try in my cheek before ever mentioning that I can do it."
"Then I just swap 'em out and pull the one with the knot out. No one has ever noticed me take the second untied stem out of my mouth."
Owen_Bundles
Cubed
"I solve a Rubik's cube that I find around the house without anyone noticing, and then I never admit to solving it. Sometimes nobody notices. I'm like a crazy party animal obviously."
fishintheboat
"My buddy used to leave an unsolved cube at parties we would go to. He would wait until he saw people messing with it, or around it and would be like 'Oh cool, can I see?' and solve it in like 10 seconds. Obviously he crushed massive amounts of sex."
shartnado3
“Read my friend's mind”
"Me and my friend have a trick we call 'black magic.' I leave the room, and the other partygoers tell my friend an object in the room. I then come back, and state that I can 'read my friends mind' and guess the object they told her. My friend starts listing items in the room, and I answer no until the actual object comes along."
"It usually takes people hours to figure out the trick. They think it’s always the third object, or that it has to do with intonation or a sign of sorts. So we repeat the trick excluding that tell. Makes them go nuts."
"The trick is in the name. The right object is the one mentioned after a black object."
PomegranateRules
One Shot
Giphy"In college, my party trick was to fill a red Solo cup with vodka and take it as a single shot. Probably killed a bunch of brain cells doing that."
Robertsonforget
Oof. College party tricks. Yikes. I remember nothing.
Duck and Roll
Rolling In The Deep GIF by AdeleGiphy"I am double joined on most of my body, I just say 'autobots roll out' and twist my body in terrifying ways into a small cube."
crappy-mods
Pistols at 14
"I got shot in the wrist by a jammed CO2 powered BB pistol at my 14th birthday party. We thought that we had gotten it out or it fell out but it had not and healed over quite quick. Twenty years later I have the power to hang magnets from my wrist that look like magic and set off very sensitive metal detectors!"
Butt-Spelunker
The Unusuals
"Opening beer bottles and wine bottles without their typical openers. ie using an empty can or lighter to open a beer bottle or banging a bottle of wine off a wall to get the cork out. Or getting out the cork of a wine bottle that’s been pushed completely inside the bottle."
"Useful party tricks are always the best and often needed!"
Alternative-Public32
Magic
Justin Willman Netflix GIF by CameoGiphy"Card tricks. It’s been years and someone still wants to know how I made their card appear."
Strong-ishninja
Play Turkey
"I often go to bonfires or scaled down versions where a fire is present. I can hold my hands in the fire for a much longer time than most people due to my job working with molten glass. It’s a fun way to shock people when you reach into the flames and grab a half burnt piece of wood or something like that. I have yet to play chicken with someone but I think it’s a credit to the people I hang out with that they aren’t dumb enough to try"
coderedmountaindewd
I gotta try a few of these.
Who am I kidding?
I'm too old.
Do you have any tricks that leave guests astounded? Let us know in the comments!