Dept. of Food and Ag putting its money where its mouth is, almost literally

Dept. of Food and Ag vegetable garden
Originally uploaded by siegel_jackie.

I walk by the California Department of Food and Agriculture every morning on my way to work. Not long ago I was distressed to see that the buildings and grounds staff had pulled out all the perennial and annual flowers, leaving empty beds.

Soon seedlings began appearing in stringed off areas. Sure looked like lettuce and radishes. Sure enough, a vegetable garden is now growing in the beds by the front entrance to the building. The beds are on the southern side of the building, however, there are very large trees directly to the south which will shade the vegetable beds most of the day. Great concept though. I wish them luck and a large harvest.

Where have all the editors gone?

I'm currently reading a book loaned to me by a co-worker. I'm not really enjoying it all that much but I rarely put down a book once I've started one. Today I read the following where the authors are describing a character at a Pilates class:

Instead of sitting at home feeling sorry for herself, she's literally taking
her demons to the mat and fighting them off one after another.

Now I have to continue reading the book to find other glaring grammatical errors, because this book is not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel. Demons and ghouls are not characters in this novel.

Shame on the authors (James Patterson and Peter DeJonge) and shame on their editor and shame on the publisher of Beach Road.

I can't help it, I take things literally

There it was, the front page headline of the local daily newspaper "Yolo County youths can work off their library fines -- literally."

What a wonderful idea I thought. Put the deadbeats to work shelving books. But that's not the plan. A new forgiveness program will allow youths to pay off their overdue fines by reading.

I have no problem at all with the program. Anything to get people to read is to be highly commended. Maybe the reporters for the newspaper should do more reading, like a grammar book to learn the proper use of "literally." Come on reporters, you work in a college town for goodness sakes. Just don't use the word since most of the time you use it incorrectly.

It's a literal literal literal literal world.

My number one grammatical pet peeve is the misuse of the word "literally." It is defined as "word for word; not imaginatively, figuratively or freely" If one were to say "it's literally raining cats and dogs" there had better be cats and dogs falling from the sky.

Just this morning I'm quietly reading my newspaper when I came across an Associated Press article under the byline of Morris and James Carey titled Energy savings add up to serious change. The final paragraph had me literally screaming out loud (and my significant other can attest to that as I do scream every time I read a misuse of the word.)

To keep your hard-earned money from literally going down the drain, be sure to
repair faucet leaks at the kitchen sink

Now, if the drain were just a big open hole one might lose one's money down the drain, but it wouldn't be due to a leaky faucet, it would be due to tossing your change into the sink.

Please editors, correct your writers!!!

A couple of years ago, after hearing my screams almost daily, dear significant other said "why don't you start a blog about literally?" What a great idea, document all the misuses I come across. Well, fellow grammarians, it's already been done, by multiple individuals. One very well done blog is at: http://literally.barelyfitz.com/