Date:         Thu, 2 Jan 1997 09:57:27 EST
From: tink's wordasaurus <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      FILLER: A Ramble About Literal

[WARNING!  He's been at the dictionaries again, so this will be wordy.
He didn't get into the thesauri, though, so he's only half-loaded.]

In amongst other comments around the borders of the unending social
exchange, from time to time will be heard the plea "I didn't expect it
to be taken literally" or some similar plaint.

[Littoral?  Ah, sweet strand that circumscribes so much.  Herewit I
did gave honor and a claim to those wonders of the littoral, dwelling
there in the tidal pools, with hermit crabs and mudsucking clams and
little waving fronds of soft green growth.  I did, I did.  I wrote it
here, you read it now, and what sense through yonder gave doth shone?

Washed two and four by the gentle waves of meaningful and meaningless,
tossed in the basilisk wash of the towering tides of tooth and touch,
they do partake of both atmosphere and damper climes, drenched in the
salty embrace of the deep and the drier crumbling of the continental
drifters.

So, then, let us not say lightly that we meant it only littorally, for
in that zone of life what strange beasts may find their parentage,
what weeds their flowering, what fish their decaying?

let it be known that this is over the edge and into the surf (no turf
to stand on, just shifting sands)]

For some reason, the last time I ran across such a remark (the
"literal" question, not that beach blanket bingo stuff), I wondered
where this little term comes from.  (Probably something I had eaten
that day, or perhaps the way my legs were crossed, or some other
irritant on the pearly expanse of my mother's shell.  Nothing to do
with the way that roadkill phrase laid there, eyeball tracks plain on
the crushed serifs, bleeding from some yet unopened vein of printer's
ink)

"Literal" that is.  After all, if something were taken _literarily_
(if I may twist the old literary term around about a bit), then we
would expect that it might have some slight acquaintance with
metaphor, trope, simile, analogy, parable, allegory, and all the other
wider wonders of the literary landscape.  And literal certainly bears
some slight resemblance in sound (and worry?) to our friend literary.

[and with a click-whirr-poof! of outraged excited pixels, we queried
the ancient tomes, we cast our bones and stirred the augured
intestines--needs a dash of salt, don't you think?--we delved for
meaning in a slurry of electronic ones and zeroes]

Literally?  (With due honor to the OED for the meanings I do hereby
misuse, malign, and otherwise entwine...don't blame the dictionary,
it's only words in print)

Expressed in letters, perchance?  And how doth this medium constrain
us, for there be little else to express ourselves with but the pixels
on the screen.  A misprint?  Yeah, verily, not a mistake of material,
but a simple literal errata, prised loose and corrected easily by
those crofters of the authentic spells and charms of Webster and
Oxford.  Or doth refer to that wonder of mathematical notation and
computation, the unknowns and soon to be ciphered quantities denoted
or expressed by a letter or letters?

Nay, press on.  Perchance literally, as commonly used, refers to the
translation, version, transcription, or other wonder which doth
represent the very words of the original, without emendation or
paraphrase, but word for word as it was misunderstood in the
beginning, is not now, and never shall be?

Or, doth reference the theological meaning, wherein the letter of the
Scripture is taken as using words in their natural or customary way,
as opposed to mystical, allegorical, moral, and otherwise unnatural
ways?

Or, does literally have the amazing ability to strip away and revoke
other meanings, forcing the words to limit their errant meanings to
the single solitary primal sense of the individual word or the one
fine sense expressed by the actual wording of a passage?

"I mean what I meant, and nothing more, and nothing less!"

It is too strong a magic for a word that hath such meanings in it,
don't you think?

Or, pray tell, do you think the word (de jour, that is?) refers to
people?  For some are prosaic, matter-of-fact, unlikely to see the
figurative flourishes of the literary clown, unwilling to laugh with
humorous exaggeration or irony, preferring the meat and potatoes of
solid (not to say stolid) writing.  Yes, 'tis true, there do be those
who fail to recognize the play of words, the kindly pitter-pat of
their little feet on the stage of our discussion, the startling way
they bend and sway?

Or, mayhap (and glad of thwap), literal does refer to composition,
meaning free from figures of speech (no statues, no painted posies, no
dancing bellies in this writing, merely speech?), exaggeration, or
allusion (does allusion refer to the belief that all is illusion?  a
kind of ellipsis philosophous, making one word out of three?).

I think I lost track of that sentence.  When literal refers to
composition, it may mean free from elements such as figures of speech,
exaggeration, or allusion.  Not that the OED would explain how one
could rope and hogtie a word, or worse yet, a whole herd of words, to
such a drab and dreary presentation, but I suppose that's what the
English teachers of yesteryear did toil and trouble long and weary
over many a forgotten tome to expunge.

Now, having provided such a wide and wonderful set of daffinitions,
the OED did at last allude to:

> 4. Used to denote that the accompanying sb. has its literal sense,
> without metaphor, exaggeration, or inaccuracy; literally so called.

So of six possible meanings, only one seems to be somewhat close to
the bullseye.  Simply said, if a sentence or phrase or word has its
literal sense (oh, no, a definition that uses the word being defined!
that's not kosher, is it?), without metaphor, exaggeration, or
innaccuracy; well, that is the so-called "literally" denotation.

[BTW--innaccuracy is fundamentally different from outaccuracy, just as
inner beauty differs from outer beauty.  One just looks like it, the
other is! and as for that old in(side)accuracy, it's only typoes to
those who don't let themselves see the inner glamour shining through.]

(what were the six?  one, the adjective dealing with letters.  two,
the matter of translation.  three, the theological, etymological,
sometimes personified, and occasionally composed business of lacking
in mystical, allegorical alligators, metaphoric, figurative,
exaggerated, or ironic senses or confusions.  four, knocking on the
door, at last referred to the literal sense in which the accompanying
sb. might be taken.  five, which I haven't mentioned yet, suggests
that literal may refer to letters or epistles, those missives of
mortals.  This meaning is obsolete, and thus of little consequence.
six!  aha!  hooray today!  For indeed, in 1485, commencing a flame
fest, someone commented on the literary literature--"lackyng lytturall
scynes" (lacking literal scenes).  And in other use, the word did mean
something literary this way runs!  yet sadly, the meaning is obsolete,
replete, and passe...away?

The OAD has the boring "1. in accordance with the primary meaning of a
word or the actual words of a phrase, as contrasted with a
metaphorical or exaggerated meaning; _a literal translation_, keeping
strictly to the words of the original.  2. (of a person) tending to
interpret things in a literal way, unimaginative."  They do make the
droll comment "The word _literally_ is sometimes used mistakenly in
statements that are clearly not to be taken literally, as in _he was
literally glued to the TV set every night._"

but not you!

over the word and through the meanings
we fooled away the time
the mouse knows the way
to click it away
in a flash of blinking cursors!

tink