Bush is, literally, an incredible speaker.

[conuly]

It is incredible how incredible he is!

*laughs at bad joke*

All joking aside, I have a question. Most people (and this includes me) dislike the more figurative use of the word "literal" as an intensifier. If you're standing here talking to me, you didn't literally die of shock.

And no, I don't especially care in an emotional way that it's been used that way for a few hundred years. I care in a less-deep-seated way - keeps me from complaining about it out loud - but really, it's one of those facts nobody really believes.

But nobody minds the use of incredible as a similar intensifier, or unbelievable. "That jump was unbelievable!" "That movie is just incredible!" Really? The movie is completely false but purporting to be true? You don't believe the jump was made?

Why is this?

(Incidentally, I read a comment lately complaining about how some people use y'all in the singular, and "all y'all" in the plural. "That's just not right!" While I agree it grates on my ears, it's no more "not right" than using you in the singular. And if y'all is acceptable, youse and you'uns and yinz ought to be as well. Less hypocrisy, more thought, mmmmkay?)

Comments

[opalcat.livejournal.com]

Can we not use the word Ebonics?
I dislike it, too, and consider its legitimacy/origins spurious, which is why I put it in quotation marks.

I think your "again" and "agin" (which DOES sound messed up to me) versus pronunciations of "nuclear" example is more a case of people finding it more acceptable to shorten or simplify words or drop sounds than to add them.

[conuly]

But it *is* simplifying a word - it's taking a word with a fairly uncommon set of sounds at the end (how many words do you know of that end cle-ur?) and substituting a much more common word-ending (especially for scientific words) - cyo-lar. A simple case of metathesis, like the one that turned acsian into ask.

[opalcat.livejournal.com]

My point is that I think people are more tolerant of changes that remove or blend sounds than changes that add sounds. In this case, you're adding a "yoo" that just isn't there.

[conuly]

Well, only kinda.... I could blather on about it, but I'd rapidly reach the end of my knowledge and have to work on supposition and making-stuff-up.

[conuly]

And I do get the point, but I'm busy in talking mode right now - point recognizing isn't the... um... objective!

[conuly]

Sorry. I Have Views on the subject.