TDS: The Hurt Talker

I know I've been posting a lot of Daily Show clips lately but these boys have just been on fire the last couple of weeks. Case in point:

I haven't yet commented upon the Laura Schlessinger fracas for two reasons: 1) I've just been too busy and 2) I begrudgingly respect her for having the balls to actually enunciate the word "nigger" in a discussion about the use of that word. Nothing bugs me more than listening to grown adults saying things like "N-word", "F-word" or "C-word" during a discussion with other adults as if there were a bunch of children within earshot. If there are kids in the room with you then yes, don't use these words in front of them but adults should be able to use epithets in discussions with other adults. As Stewart says, context and intent are far more important than the actual words themselves. How does one have a substantive discussion about the use or misuse of the word "nigger" if one is too cowed by political correctness to utter it even innocuously?

Now, as to Schlessinger's use of the word: did I say "having the balls" earlier? Because what I really meant was "lacking the brains". Yes, adults should be able to say "nigger" in a discussion about the use of that word and its effect on our society but an old white woman claiming that she should have the same leeway in its use as black comedians on HBO is just about the dumbest way to go about having that discussion I can think of. I can't count the number of times I've heard white people say, "Well if black people can say the N-word why can't we?" and my answer is always the same: hundreds of years of culturally institutionalized slavery and racial discrimination, that's why. I don't support slavery reparation policies or anything like that but I am OK with this small double standard as it concerns racial disparity. It's the same reason I can say that one of my little sisters is acting like a bitch but I better not hear you say it: it's a right reserved for my family only. On the 300th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington white people should feel free to check in with the black community at that point to see if it's OK to chant "nigger, nigger, nigger" yet but until then idiots like Schlessinger just need to relax on that count or else they'll find themselves in the same situation she does now. Freedom of speech is a great thing but it does have consequences for which one must take responsibility.

My favorite part about this whole brouhaha however is the fact that Sarah Palin has injected herself into the fray and proven once again that she has absolutely no concept of what constitutes First Amendment freedom of speech rights. Ignoring the hypocrisy of her calling for Emmanuel's resignation for using the word "retarded" discussed above I'm reminded of a post I wrote about Palin and the First Amendment a couple of days before the 2008 presidential election:

She's already proven that she has no idea what the job of the vice-president is, so why should we expect her to understand how the first amendment works?

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Really? Since Chris Plante is a right-wing talk radio host it's no surprise that he didn't call her on her shit but just in case any of you (besides Palin and Plante) have forgotten:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So according to Sarah Palin (and yes, I know how loaded a phrase that can be) the media and others exercising their free speech rights to refute and/or criticize what she says is the same thing as the United States government passing laws explicitly outlawing what she says. In other words, Palin's idea of free speech is the right to say anything critical about anybody or anything without anyone else criticizing what you've just said; in point of fact, that's the exact opposite of free speech.

At least she's remained consistent in her constitutional ignorance. I wonder if she's had time between speeches and media appearances to learn what the vice-president does yet? I'll say it again, Republicans: run her, please. Hell, put Schlessinger on the ticket as her VP nominee while you're at it. I can certainly use all the laughs I can get.

Palin's 2012 Presidential Bid In Taiwanese CGI

Finally, a news organization has captured the essence of Sarah Palin's charisma and the dignity of the American political process:

The good people at NMA News, the Taiwanese news service that made a name for itself with its bizarre computer animated coverage of, among other things, the Al Gore scandal and January’s Late Night Wars, is back with a vengeance, and this time they’ve set their eyes on Sarah Palin’s 2012 prospects.

Well, at least that’s what we assume this video is about from its title, “Is Sarah Palin Gunning for 2012?” In terms of the actual content, it’s mostly Palin pole dancing in a bikini, shooting moose with a machine gun from a helicopter and parachuting herself into a “teabagger rally.” There is also a rendition of “Keeping Up with the Palins” (presumably a Wasilla-based reality TV show) depicting the Palin family smoking illicit substances and yelling at each other, and a dramatization of the suffering of William Shakespeare’s ghost as he watches Palin “refudiate” the Ground Zero mosque.

What, too real?

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults Of All Time

"Your mom goes to college..." is probably my favorite because it's so innocuous:


(hat tip: one L bill)

Can Monkeys Talk?

It would appear that they're trying to:


(via)

Teabonics: Speak Teabagger Like The Pros

This is just one reason I make fun of them:

These are signs seen primarily at Tea Party Protests. They all feature "creative" spelling or grammar. This new dialect of the English language shall be known as "Teabonics."

You can check out the entire set here. My favorites are like the one above: insisting upon the primacy of the English language whilst simultaneously and unwittingly mutilating it. I've always been a big fan of iruny.

(via)

The Diversity Of The Word...

Ladies and gentlemen, the lamest fucking kid on the planet:

A 17-year-old student from South Pasadena High School in California took Vice President Joe Biden to task Friday for his use of an un-choice word this week whispered into the ear of President Barack Obama.

"This is a huge deal," McKay Hatch told reporters. "Many kids and adults all over the world look up to Vice President Biden as a role model. He needs to be a good role model for kids and use clean and appropriate language."

Hatch was referring to Biden's "This is a big f............ deal" sotto-voce remark Tuesday to his boss during the signing of the health care bill that was picked up by microphones and amplified around the world.

Hatch called on Biden to apologize, then packed a "No Cussing Club" T-shirt, wrist bands and penalty jar into a box and carried it to the local post office, cameras documenting his every move and utterance. His goal: "to remind him to use good language."

Hatch said he was not opposed to Biden exercising his First Amendment rights. "He has the freedom of speech to say what he wants, but he can't choose the consequences of what he says," the student said. "We need as a country to get back to the basic values and come together and treat people with civility."

Look, I'm not saying that you're lame if you don't curse or use the word "fuck" on a regular basis but if you're seventeen years old and you spend a significant amount of time writing letters to public officials about curse words I'm sorry but you're fucking lame. Obviously Biden wouldn't have said what he did if he had known that it was going to be picked up by an open microphone but since he did my response to this kid is the same one I have concerning tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling and sex: That's only for grown ups! Discussion over.

The fact that this kid is trying to tell one adult that he can't say the word "fuck" to another adult without being civil is as tone deaf as every right-wing talking head and pundit I've heard complaining lately about the supposed double standard for behaviour between Republicans and Democrats over the juxtaposing quotes at the top of this post. Words in and of themselves are not uncivil, it's the context within which they're used that can make them so. Saying that something is "a big fucking deal" and telling someone to "go fuck themselves" are two very different usages of a versatile word and the word "fuck" is extremely versatile:


It's usage can be benign or nefarious, playful or hateful, instructive or stupid, but the real stupidity happens when supposedly intelligent people can't recognize these distinctions because they've relegated such a diverse word to the catch-all category of "bad". That's how five-year-olds view the world. One would hope that by seventeen Hatch would have the ability to see things in finer shades of grey. So don't be surprised if you hear this kid's name sometime down the road as part of a campaign to censor what you and other adults can watch on television. It's all part and parcel of the same world view that consenting adults must be saved from all of the things that other adults don't like or agree with for our own good, and it's fucking lame.

SNL: An Apology From Rahm Emanuel

This was nice of him:


(via)

How To Use A Semicolon

This easy to follow chart labels them "The most feared punctuation on Earth" and I think a lot of writers would agree with this assessment. Personally, I love semicolons and I use them relatively liberally in my own writing. In fact, I've made a real effort to cut down since shortly after the inception of this blog; it was starting to get a bit out of hand. Oh, there I go again...

(via)

Negro-Gate: Harry Reid Is No Trent Lott

If you have not yet heard:

WASHINGTON – The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate apologized on Saturday for comments he made about Barack Obama's race during the 2008 presidential bid and are quoted in a yet-to-be-released book about the campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then-Sen. Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Obama is the nation's first African-American president.

"I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments," Reid said in a statement released after the excerpts were first reported on the Web site of The Atlantic.

"I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign and have worked as hard as I can to advance President Obama's legislative agenda."

This is one of the most racist things I've ever heard and Harry Reid should resign from the United States senate immediately. Just kidding. I was just imagining what it would be like to be a partisan reactionary douchebag there for a second; could you imagine if I was really like that? *shudder* And yet many such Republicans are indeed tripping over their own feet in the rush to condemn Reid because finally someone who actually isn't a member of their party said something racist in public. And let's be clear here: if we're to analyze what Reid said about Obama in the context of every other statement we as an all too politically correct society have deemed racist, then this was certainly a racist comment.

That's not to say however that it wasn't true, and Reid was in fact giving Obama a compliment by stating that those previously mentioned attributes would work to Obama's advantage as he ran for president (his was also one of the first major endorsements Obama received from the Democratic establishment). Now personally I'm not entirely convinced that the specific skin tone of a black political candidate has an appreciable effect on their electability but it also wouldn't surprise me were it true. After slavery was officially abolished in the U.S. during the 19th century many light-skinned blacks and Mulattoes took advantage of their ability to "pass" as white for a time, and on a personal note when I was employed in downtown Oakland I worked with a guy named Mike whose last name I thought was Black. I eventually found out that all of the other black guys we saw every day called him "Black" because his skin was so dark. So one can't deny that we notice such differences as a multi-racial society and thus they must have some effect on elections, even if it's speculative or somewhat negligible.

Reid's comments about Obama's lack of a "Negro dialect" that he can turn on and off at will also hold truth. Let's face it, if Obama normally spoke like the average NBA star or hip hop artist he never would have been selected as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, much less elected president of the United States. But instead Obama is perceived as an intelligent well-educated man and his impressive public speaking skills are his strongest attribute as a successful politician. Another asset is his ability to act hip (or as hip as a nerd like Obama can manage) by speaking popular street slang, connecting him with voters who don't necessarily relate to his usual professorial speaking style. These are advantages that Reid was attempting to praise with his idiotic, ill-phrased comments.

And those comments were most definitely idiotic and ill-phrased, there's no doubt about that. Really, what experienced politician walks around saying the word "negro" in public in the year 2008? The fact that congress is almost completely composed of old white guys is an image that they're trying very hard to move away from, not call attention to. So now of course Republicans, never a party to pass up a chance to twist the rhetorical knife into their political opponents (although the Democrats are hardly much better most of the time), have begun the all too predictable calls for Reid to resign as the Senate majority leader with a pathetic display of faux moral outrage. The most popular avenue of attack thus far has been that of comparing Reid's remarks to those of former Republican Senator and majority leader Trent Lott about Republican Strom Thurmund at his 100th birthday celebration:

When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, "Hey self, those remarks don't really seem all that racist." And you'd be correct, if only Lott hadn't been saying them about a man who ran for the presidency on a platform of strict racial segregation. That's right, Lott was saying that he was proud to have voted for a man who's presidential stump speech included statements like, "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches" and that if Thurmond had only won the presidency and been able to implement his racist vision of barring black people from white society America would have been better off as a result (since this was the late 1940's we'll forgive Thurmond's use of the word "negro" as merely a sign of the times). Lott was subsequently forced to resign as Senate majority leader as a result of these comments and rightly so, but I have to take exception with the current comparisons some Republicans are trying to draw between that incident and Senator Reid's moronic statements.

Reid wasn't trying to disparage black people with his remarks, he was merely trying to strategically handicap a political race by enumerating some of a candidate's positive electoral attributes (admittedly phrased in an extraordinarily stupid manner). This is hardly ethically equivalent to stating that one is proud to have voted for a segregationist and that a segregated America would be a better country. Add to that Lott's longstanding ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization established by former activists in the segregationist White Citizens' Councils that advocates white supremacy and white separatism, along with Lott's consistent grade of "F" on the NAACP's legislative report card and his remarks about Thurmond begin to provide a fairly accurate portrayal of the man's views on race relations.

Senator Reid, on the other hand, has consistently received a 100 percent rating from the NAACP and is well known for his decades-long efforts to integrate Las Vegas' casino industry. Now in the past I've stated my displeasure with Reid on numerous occasions (I consider him to be an ineffectual pussy of a Senate majority leader and somewhat of an annoying dork to boot) but it's obvious to any objective American that he's no racist and thus should not be forced to resign his seat over this incident. At worst, he's guilty of being an old white man who has trouble relating directly to the black community but his actions as a legislator rightfully outweigh any stupid remarks he might have made during the last election.

The real villains in this tale are the serial opportunist Republicans who wasted no time in quickly moving to exploit Reid's situation by attacking him with that same faux moral outrage I spoke of earlier. They've made it abundantly clear that they would rather stoke the flames of racial discord in America than use their elected positions to pass legislation like health care reform that would significantly benefit the economically disadvantaged in this country, a group disproportionately composed of minorities. This makes it fairly obvious that black America has some real problems with the Republican party and its current drift even further to the right of the political spectrum will do little to make those problems disappear.

Based on this track record, it's entirely possible that the Republicans really don't understand the difference between a terrible choice of words and pining for segregationism. This is no excuse for their despicable actions of course, and one could argue that it actually makes them appear even more disingenuous and out of touch with the rest of America, but at least it would be the truth. Although they seem to have a real problem when it comes to that, don't they?

How To Say The New Year

There's a right way and a wrong way. Spread the word.

(via)

Texas Police Ticket For Not Speaking English

Really, Texas?:

Police officials say they have uncovered 38 cases where Dallas officers improperly cited drivers for not being able to speak English.

Chief David Kunkle said Friday the discovery came after a woman was pulled over earlier this month for making an illegal U-turn and was given a ticket for being a "non-English speaking driver."

Ed Morrisy has the definitive comment:

This is Texas, of course. And if English was good enough for the Lord Jesus Christ, it's good enough for them.

English, motherfucker! Do you speak it!? You better.

The Word "Douchebag": They're Taking It Back

You know who these guys are:

(via)

Something Hyperbolic Someone Else Said

"This is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America. This is the type of fanaticism Republicans are up against as we fight to stop the Obama Democrats' radical leftist transformation of America." -Michael Steele, in a fundraising letter, referring to a video of schoolchildren singing about President Obama.

These people are absolutely shameless and they obviously don't give a shit about this country or its people.

(via)

Advertisement Of The Day

Print magazine recently commissioned four design firms to imagine what form legalized cannabis would take were it to be marketed and sold to the public. The packages above were created by The Heads of State, a two-man operation run by Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers in Philadelphia:

OUR DIRECTION is essentially about preserving the spirit of buying pot illegally. The rituals and customs of scoring a bag of weed are so ingrained in pop culture that to ignore them simply because marijuana is legal seems to do a disservice to decades-old pot culture. The brand is built around a sticker system. We used the Akzidenz family for the type and wanted it to have a slightly under-designed feel to it, something nicely done but not too slick or mass-market. Finding the perfect bag was tricky, but we ended up with a bag that’s 3" x 4.5."

APPROACH: Our initial idea was to package the joints in a cigarette box or something like that. But it would take a person a long time to smoke 20 to 30 joints. Paring it down to 12 seemed the way to go.

NAME: There is always a slight mystery involved in buying pot, and you aren’t always sure how good the quality is going to be. We wanted to nod to that with the different product names, while interjecting a bit of humor. We had 14 or 15 names ready to go, and could have gone on and on.

I find their logic in mimicking the street culture appearance of the product to be sound (and the packaging is simple yet professional looking) but I'm not too crazy about the names they chose. I understand that products need catchy, clever nomenclature but I've long said that for cannabis to finally be taken seriously on the legalization front we have to move past the juvenile culture created by High Times magazine and old Cheech and Chong flicks. Names like "Possibly Oregano" and "Stems and Seeds" echo street slang well enough but there are literally dozens of different strains of cannabis with distinct genetic characteristics that have already been named and catalogued by the growers who cross-bred and created them and I believe that these appellations should be the basis for how this product will eventually be marketed.

(via)

Rebranding Health Care Reform

Since the Republican fear mongering about death panels and death books has not yet completely destroyed President Obama's health reform initiatives they've recently decided to try a new tactic: Rebranding the term "universal health coverage" as "government-run health care". Not only does it put the verboten verbiage "government" front and center but it also handily fits into the right-wing talking point of "If the government can't even run 'blank', then how are they going to blah, blah, blah?"

Perhaps this is envy on my part but it seems to me that the political left in this country completely lacks the ability to frame debates using catchy or cleverly named policy initiatives the way the right does. Aside from the aforementioned death panels and books, legislation like the Clear Skies Initiative (which actually allowed for an increase in air pollution), the Healthy Forests Initiative (which actually allowed for an increase in logging and deforestation) and the Patriot Act (which actually allowed the decidedly unpatriotic acts of government eavesdropping and torture of US citizens) was not only extraordinarily Orwellian but was also passed extremely successfully by the Bush administration. Meanwhile, the Democrats have only been able to come up with relatively unimaginative and blasé policy monikers like SCHIP and "economic stimulus package" (even the fairly successful "Cash for Clunkers" program sounds like a child suggested it).

So now hot on the heels of Ted Kennedy's recent death the Republicans have predictably started frothing at the collective mouth over the prospect of the Democrats naming Obama's health care initiative after the late senator, claiming that it would be some kind of disrespectful, crass exploitation of the man's passing and the sympathy it has elicited from the American public. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure that not only would Kennedy be deeply honored if this bill carried his name but that he'd also whole-heartedly approve of using this marketing technique to ultimately get it passed into law. I know that if using my name after my own death helped achieve anything I'd repeatedly referred to as "the cause of my life" I'd be posthumously all for it, respect for the dead be damned.

But upon further reflection I've decided that merely naming the bill after Kennedy still might not be enough to achieve this critically needed legislative victory, so I've taken the liberty of coming up with some alternate branding names/catch phrases that might elicit a bit more public support:

- Health Care '09: The Rehealthening

- Who Wants to Live Forever? (this one is just for the Queen/Highlander fans)

- I Can't Believe It's Not Socialized Medicine!

- Super Happy Fun Time Feel Good Plan (suggested by my Korean grocer)

- President Obama's No Drama, Less Trauma Health Care Plan

- So You Think You're Healthier Than a 5th Grader?

- Twilight (just to capitalize on the current popularity)

- We Promise You Won't Get Michael Jackson's Doctor...

- Now Death Panel-Free!

- Home of the Glenn Beck-ectomy

I hadn't meant for that to resemble a top ten list when I started writing it but apparently all those hours watching David Letterman as a boy had a much bigger impact than I thought. Have any other health care plan rebranding suggestions? Feel free to drop them in the comment section.

FOX News Discovers Obama's "Death Book"

OK, it's actually Bush's "death book" and it's actually not even a "death book" but rather one of several end-of-life planning books referred to and distributed by the Department of Veterans Affairs:


First "death tax", then "death panels" and now "death book". Those Republicans are marketing geniuses, I tell ya.

(via)

American Power And "Epic Fail!": An Observation

I've noticed a somewhat amusing trend lately over at my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas' site American Power: The extreme overuse of the term "Epic Fail" to describe anything and everything he disagrees with, particularly in the exclamatory sense. I've addressed his use of the term before but recently the problem has gotten much worse. You know that uncomfortable feeling you get when an older female relative tries to dress as if she's still in her 20's and she just ends up looking sadly pathetic and tragically unhip? That's how I feel watching an uptight, fifty year old neoconservative repeatedly beat that Internet slang term into the virtual ground.

I also find it somewhat reminiscent of everyone I knew as a kid during the 1980's calling everything under the sun "Awesome!" or of Sean Hannity declaring everything the Democrats do or say "Unbelievable!". You pretty much sap these terms of all their rhetorical strength and meaning when you overuse them to the point of becoming a catchphrase. Or to quote The Princess Bride:

Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE!

Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

For now I'll overlook the linguistic irony of failing to use the term "Fail" correctly and offer some free advice: Stick with "Get bent" or "Jinkies" or "Keep on truckin" or whatever else you guys used to say back in the day Don, and leave the use of Internet slang terms to younger generations. You'll sound somewhat smarter when you write and hopefully your kids might be a little less embarrassed about going out into public with you. Can you dig it, jive turkey?

[Update: On an extremely tangential note, while unsuccessfully searching for a quality clip of the movie lines I quoted above I came across this Star Wars-ified reimagining of one of the best sword fights in movie history. Enjoy:
]

Picture Of The Day

Apparently these Obama-as-Joker posters have been popping up anonymously all over Los Angeles lately, ostensibly as some sort of attempt to portray the demonization of the president as another type of "grassroots" movement. Photoshopping him to look like one of comic fictions most nefarious villains is obviously meant to be some kind of smear (make up; get it?) but the message that the artist is trying to convey seems to be a bit muddled:

As if it isn't enough to equate President Obama to a sadistic, murdering terrorist, a more typical charge of socialism is made in the bottom of the Obama Joker poster. Nothing more specific is spelled out, and no one as of yet has figured out where these posters come from, or who made them.

If President Obama isn't called a socialist once every day, then it is a day where his opponents must be busy taking a nap. The Obama Joker poster is a new tactic, however, albeit small time. But using the Joker to paint Obama as a socialist isn't really that accurate at all.

The Joker was many things, but was hardly a socialist. In fact, the Joker is the polar opposite of a socialist, and anyone who watched The Dark Knight would know that. Socialism is the result of an all powerful central government that runs every aspect of life - but the Joker subscribes to anarchy, one of socialism's polar opposites.

If the Joker was a socialist, he would be destroying Gotham in the name of an all powerful state. Instead, the self-described "agent of chaos" nearly brought down the state itself, and all of its most cherished institutions, so that nothing could bring order to Gotham.

As stated above, communicating a coherent political message doesn't seem to be the actual objective here. For many of Obama's opponents merely painting him up as a domestic terrorist and mindlessly calling him a Socialist is message enough. They know what they mean, a skillful grasp of the English language and the ability to effectively use symbolism is not required to make their point. Admittedly, it's not quite as subtle as portraying him as a voodoo witch doctor with a bone through his nose but we can't all be Vincent Van Gogh or Karl Rove, can we?

(via)

[Update: Sullivan has this to add when the irony of Obama in white face is brought up by one of his readers:

It's graphically striking, but politically obtuse. The Joker is a wild man; Obama is no-drama; the Joker is an anarchist; Obama is a community organizer. Obama's careful politicking, his almost painful resistance to emotionalism, are worth lampooning, because they at least show an understanding of him, which is essential to successful mockery. But portraying him as an anarchist white terrorist recently made famous by Heath Ledger? To prove what exactly? Or is even asking for a reason at this point a silly thing to do?

It is indeed silly, in my opinion. I am of course all for freedom of expression and First Amendment rights so I see no need to do anything other than mock the obvious lack of a message here because the sole intent is obviously merely to try to insult Obama and his policies. The guy who made these wouldn't know actual "lampooning" if Clark W. Griswold sat on his face.]

Shatner Reads Palin's Tweets

Comedic genius that he is, Conan O'Brien has hit upon a magical formula:


You can watch Shatner performing her farewell speech here. And I've revised my usual mantra: Palin-Shatner (as interpreter) in 2012!

(via)

Something Really Stupid Someone Else Said

"The world is literally her oyster," -Meg Stapleton, spokeswoman for Sarah Palin.

“You know one of the things I can’t stand; one of my like pet peeves is people who misuse the word literally. That drives me up a wall because when you misuse the word literally you are using it in the exact opposite way it was intended. When you fuck that up, you fuck it up so bad. Its not like a little goof. You should stop using the word forever until you fucking figure it out." -Comedian David Cross.