It is literally impossible to be literal.

I know what you’re thinking. Literal is the word we use when we mean exactly what we say, and metaphorical or figurative is what we say when we’re playing around. When we’re being figurative, we say “it was a million miles away”, meaning “I walked for hours.” When we’re being literal, a million miles away is somewhere between the moon and Mars.

Now Johnson is on the record as supporting the traditional distinction between literal and metaphorical. When Joe Biden, the vice-president of the United States, says that Republicans “ran the economy and the middle class literally into the ground”, or Lindsey Graham, an American senator, talks of “literally turning nuclear swords into ploughshares”, it grates on the ears. Even though great authors have been “misusing” literally for centuries (watch this short video), Johnson still prefers its “I really mean it” meaning.

But as it turns out, it is not so easy to distinguish between literal and metaphorical. To start with the easy one:…Continue reading

from Prospero http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/11/metaphors?fsrc=rss
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