More From The Pedant Box

In 'Pixar need to study Elementary Physics' I introduced you to my pedant box ( things that I am fussy about). I must thank my friend Nancy for sending me this, which forced me to look into the pedant box and pull out two of the things that make me scream (occasionally laugh).

The first is, literally. This word, which has provided deep humor to ‘private eye’ readers for years, still makes me laugh often. My Collins Dictionary defines Literally as: “1. In exact accordance with or limited to the primary or explicit meaning of a word or text. 2. word for word.” Bearing that in mind when dear old Murray Walker announced that:

“… quite literally, I have my heart in my mouth!” It was a kinda gross mental image.

Another example came the other night when watching Fox61 news. The presenter quoted the leader of the Connecticut Democratic Party as saying:

“Joe Lieberman has literally broken my heart.” I wondered when Mr. Lieberman would be arrested for murder.

The second word is, Decimate. To decimate is to reduce by one tenth. (From Latin decimare ‘to take the tenth (decimus) part of anything’). So when the presenter on the Discovery show said:

“…The Chachapoya were decimated by 90%.” It was a mathematical nonsense.

Everyone’s pedant box probably has some of their own, what’s yours?

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Bazza