Monday 2 July 2007

Please Don't Spoof the Cat...

I have a family member who is dearly beloved, but has a little problem generating misnomers. At one visit at another family member's house, a skittish pet cat was scared out of the living room by (if I remember correctly) a barking dog. Our beloved family member said, "Oh, shoot, now that dog has gone and spoofed the cat." I chuckle fondly every time I think of it, and especially when I came across this picture of a dog quite literally spoofing a cat...

Speaking of the word 'literally,' why is it that 80% of people, including Smart People on TV, have no idea what it means? Last night, an academic on the news said "terrorists are evolving before our eyes, both literally and figuratively." No, I think just figuratively, unless they are mutating a new set of gills, or something. And, unless you are referring to an amicable contortionist or acrobat, you should never have use to say "he literally bent over backwards to help me."

4 comments:

Zion said...

I hear ya dude: Andrew and and I have been annoyed by the misuse of the word 'literally' for years now.. LITERALLY!! Ha, ha, ha.

James Corachea said...

Still, it's much better than 'totally', 'so' and 'random' used out of context.

Is that your dog or a textless macro? "I can has ears?"

Exeterra said...

Heh, that would make a decent macro. The dog is not mine; I found it floating in the tubes, I believe originally from an animal shelter website.

btw... Have you seen LOLpresidents.com?

Yeah, "terrorists are evolving, both totally so randomly and figuratively" would have been even lamer.

James, I just checked out your profile, and saw all the conservation work - it sounds like pretty cool stuff. I saw you work(ed) at the RPA - Sita and Andrew (from comment 1) used to work there too. From what I hear, it was a paragon of efficiency and professionalism.

James Corachea said...

Hi. Sorry for the delayed reply. It looks like there's no email notification or RSS for comments.

Do you know whose team Sita and Andrew were on? Do they use facebook?