Two more crotchets
February 5, 2009, 7:49 am
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
A radio ad for new windows: “Don’t you know that the dollars you spend for heating are literally flying out the window.”
In the TLS (no less): “Brougham’s significance as a driving force for legal and educational reform cannot be underestimated.” I’m sure it can be; I’ve been doing it all my life, and Ab esse ad posse valet illatio. [From actuality to possibility is a valid inference (whereas from possibility to actuality would not be one).]
Fr. K, you might enjoy Literally, a Weblog, which collects and categorizes public misuses of “literally.” (Whoever operates it doesn’t update it nearly as often as they could!)
Fr. Komonchak
Ashton must have meant to say “overestimated”, I guess. Since you bring up the TLS I hope you have read the remarkable piece in the January 30 issue: Stalin, the Second Coming. It is worth a posting. Stalin as Antichrist.
I’ll look for the piece on Stalin–it has an apriori attractiveness.
I find the use of “underestimated,” where “overestimated” must be meant, so common that it threatens to match the confusion of “literally’ and “metaphorically”.
A possible parallel: “I am humbled” = “I am honored”.