Oh, hello Correctness Readers. I didn’t see you there. I literally didn’t, because I wrote this in the past, from your point of view as the reader, and you are not at the moment wherever you are right now when you will read this, or more clearly, when you are currently reading this, ie: you are reading this now, but not then (your past) when I wrote it, so I couldn’t see you there because of the linear passage of time. Capiche? Also, I wrote this at home, so, i’ll be quite surprised if you are here when you do read this, or rather, now that you are reading it (your present), I hope you are not in my home (my future). Capichier?

Some of you fine folks know I’ve gone back to school to learn to teach English as a second language, because my first 2 degrees are worth jack shit to nobody, no how. Also, my film school diploma is only useful for settling arguments about why I enjoyed Sucked Punch and why everyone else was so very wrong about it. My point being that I have a lot of post secondary accreditation, and I am unemployed.

In any case, I would like to clarify an important point of grammar for you. Admin_Rock and I were discussing perfect tenses, particularly the present perfect, and we had a lively debate about the best usage of the amiable perfect tense.

What makes these tenses so perfect? Well, according to some guy, the phrase actually refers to the Latin “per fecta” which means “completely done”. This makes some sense, because ESL teachers perpetrate an amazing lie and take great pains to convince English language learners that the present perfect tense is used primarily for describing an action which began in the past, and has continuing implications in the present. For example:

“Oh God, I have lived in Calgary for 31 years.”

This is the present perfect tense because it uses the present form of the verb “to have” and the past participle form of any verb, in this case “lived”. This is a textbook (literally fucking textbook) use of the present perfect tense. Yes, despite the fact that it describes a past event, albeit an ongoing one, it is technically a present tense. Tense has nothing to do with what time it is, you’ll be most horrified to recall.

The reason I bring it up is because I was able to generate far more exceptions to this rule than proofs. Several creepy exceptions follow:

“Has Molly Milked the cows? Yes, Molly has milked the cows”. Does that mean molly is currently milking the cows? No, it does not. Could I say “Yes, Molly milked the cows”? Yes I could. But would I? Hard to say.

What if I say “Molly’s milked the cows before. and she’ll do it again” Is she milking the cows right now? No, but I’ll bet she has supple hands that are good for all kinds of things. We usually use the present simple to describe habitual actions, as in the case of “Molly moisturizes her supple yet dainty hands daily”, and yet we know Molly will return to the fields, he perfect, porcelain skin gleaming in the sun as she works those udders.

“Molly has capitalized on her supple hands, and is making it big in the city”. Again, another incidence of present perfect, though in this case, it arguably suggests she continues to capitalize on her her skills, as well as her soft, feminine form which is accentuated by her innocent demeanour, and silken auburn curls.

Also, the difference between present perfect and present perfect continuous is not always straightforward. For example “I have dreamt of Molly for years” and “I have been dreaming of Molly for years” is virtually negligible to my ear, and yet the two tenses are intended to serve different purposes.

The past and future forms of the perfect tense are no more consistent.

“Molly had lost her virtue before I got to her” is typical. That is a past event completed before another past event. However, “Molly had quivered in anticipation of my arrival” Is not typical – I can only assume as a non expert – because it leaves out a presumed simple past tense clause like “Molly had quivered in aniticipation of my arrival, and delighted all the more when I roughly took her in the hay loft”.

Future perfect constructions are somewhat more clear, though I suggest you may find exceptions to them quite easily.

“Good on that douchehammer for running off with my ex, he will have learned about VD firsthand by now.” makes a good example. Another might be “By the time he gets home today, he will have already eaten out that skeezy vag one too many times” (“eaten out” is a phrasal verb). Note the frequent necessity of a phrase like “By the time”, or some similar construction (correct me if I am wrong readers, is that an adverbial clause?).

“When my ex finally comes crawling back, I will have married Molly” is fine. It also works in the negative, as in “Here is some good news: I will not have gotten chlamydia just from being in the same room as that bitch my ex”.

Returning to the present perfect, are we arguably misusing the tense when we say things like “I have given Molly so many orgasms she can’t use numbers anymore, and she doesn’t even care” or “Molly’s had so much joy in her life that she blows me for no reason these days”. We could say those in the present simple “I gave Molly so many orgasms” or “Molly has so much joy in her life”. Capichiest?

Feel free to leave you opinion below, and once you have had your say, I will poop in your eye socket.

File under: Awkward Usage, Modern language, “Literally”

Hello, Modern Language Users:

Um, hey, gosh guys, I’m not sure how to put this. You know when you say things like “That was literally the biggest meal ever”, or “That was literally off the hizzy”? You know what I’m talking about? Yeah, about that…

Yeah, um, I’m no Grammar Nazi, I mean, not anymore, and I certainly enjoy the flexibility of writing in this casual style. It’s just that I think what you think “literally” means isn’t what it means? Ya know?

If something is literal, it exists or occurs precisely as the phrase you use to describe the event or object. This is in opposition to something being “figurative” , and we (and by we, I mean, apes who can read the printed word) quite often use the word “literally” to explain the subtle irony of something having the attributes of being figurative (metaphorical, non-real), but having occurred precisely as the metaphorical device describes it. Now, I think some of you use “literally” in a hyperbolic way, so let me provide an example.

If my girlfriend left me- I’m sorry- If I had a girlfriend and she left me, I could say “So and so left me, and I fell to pieces, figuratively” to describe my distraught emotional state. However, if my girlfriend left me and notified me by planting a live grenade in my anus, with my dying breath I could gather the bloody ribbons of my violently redistributed internal organs and utter the phrase- again note the subtle irony here- “So and so left me, and I LITERALLY fell to pieces.”.

See how that works? Now, contextually, it seems a bit like when we say “literally” we are exaggerating the outcome, and the feeling of hyperbole carries over to how some of you charming-but-tediously-retarded folks use the word in other contexts. “Literally” is not used to emphasize the scale or importance of something, it is simply contextually linked to such events when used correctly. It seems to emphasize something because of the unlikelihood of an event which is metaphorical or figurative being played out in real life.

So, just to clarify, because I know some of you kids go a bit squinty when we talk language, here is an alternative example:

When you say “that was literally the biggest meal ever that I just ate”, what you mean is ‘That was figuratively the biggest meal ever”, or even more probably you mean “that was a very large meal”. However, if you just consumed LITERALLY the biggest meal ever (“Evar” for those of you who are LOLcats) the fact that you are alive and aren’t hospitalized from a burst stomach or, say, the crushing gravitational pull of the largest meal ever suggests to me that you did not mean “literally”. Oh, and backtracking a bit, I meant “probably” literally, not subjectively- like, there is a greater probability that you mean “That was a very large meal.”.

I recently heard someone say “this [party] is literally off the hizzy”.

There is so little meaning embedded in that arrangement of words that even Roland Barthes would be hard pressed to defend your inexplicable linguistic construct.

Do I even dare break this down? I do? Okay, I will.

“This [party]“: Fine. We understand that the party is the subject of your clause, well done. A verb should complete this. In fact, you didn’t even say the word “party”, but you implied it with gestures. You could have meant “this wonderful evening” or “this happenstance meeting of a doe-eyed brunette woman and you, Rob, only you” instead of “party”, but we basically get that you are referring to the events of the night in general.

“This [party] is“: Also fine, “is” is an intransitive verb. You are about to tell me in what state the “party” exists, or how it is to be. I might add here that we loosely understand that the “party” is inclusive the people, place and mood of the event, so however we describe the party next is referring to the sum of these things as if they were a single subject.

“This [party] is literally“: So far so good, whatever the party “literally” is, it had better not be a metaphor or conceit of any kind.

“This [party] is literally off the hizzy“. STOP. NO. HOLD THE FIGURATIVE PHONE. You have eradicated all meaning from your words. You might as well speak in gibberish. Let’s break this down again

“off the hizzy“: This is a slang adaptation of “off the hook”, as in “the phone is off the hook” as in “this event is of enough importance that the phone, so as not disturb our important event, has been taken off of it’s telephone cradle or “hook”.

As the mechanics say, “well, here’s your problem right here”:

“This [party] is literally off the hizzy“: You are telling me that this party, which, firstly, you never actually clarified was specifically what you were referring to because you didn’t say party, and secondly, which is a collection of people in a place enjoying festivities, has been removed, in its entirety, people, location, and all, from what I am to understand, only colloquially, is a large hook (or cradle) like a telephone has.

Not only have you used a slang phrase to describe the state of existence of the sum of the things that make up this party, but you have implied that it is somehow being transported atop some kind of giant telephone.

You. Don’t. Mean. Literally.

You could have just said “This party is off the hizzy.” and I would have understood this as a metaphorical construction. We’re all used to that sort of thing. “Our love is the ocean.” or “This is heaven.” are metaphors we understand. If you say “Our love is literally the ocean” that becomes uniquely inexplicable, and if you say “this is literally heaven” then you have shaken the last of my Judeo-Christian faith by exposing me to the outstanding shittiness of heaven on a day to day basis.

Now, I may not be an expert per se, and God knows a discussion of my extensive use of the parenthetical comma  could fill an entire essay, but I can read a dictionary, and I do know what “literally” means, and to quote Inigo Montoya, “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”.

Anyways, you guys, I hope that clears some things up, because I have literally had it up to here with your incorrect usage of the word “literally” and I am literally going to lose it, and I am literally going to kill you if you don’t stop it, because you are literally an amoebic shit stain if you can’t get this.

Fun bonus puzzle: Figure out what I actually meant in my last sentence!