4 ms·
Amusing bit of hyperbole in the very first line of the article: “San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is laying down the law — literally. “ Nowhere in
by SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
Amusing bit of hyperbole in the very first line of the article:
“San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is laying down the law — literally. “
Nowhere in the article is it explained how they “literally” are laying down the law.
- jmcgough 8y agoWhat's hyperbolic about that? The article says: "As part of city law, San Francisco requires property owners renting out units for less than 30 days to register with the city’s office of short-term rentals, as well as be a permanent resident of that unit." They were breaking the law, Herrara enforced said law.
- ArchTypical 8y agoYou literally need to look up the definition of what literally means.
- Swizec 8y agoFunny you should say that! The definition of literally changed in August 2013 to also include figuratively due to popular usage. https://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary_literally_now_also_means_figuratively_newscred/ https://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary... I was quite surprised when I randomly found out yesterday.
- crooked-v 8y agoThis trend in language literally makes me irrationally angry. I wonder if this is how people felt when some guy invented the word "flammable" in 1813.
- elliekelly 8y agoNext thing you know "irregardless" will be in the dictionary. If that happens I will "literally" have to forsake the English language.
- astura 8y agoGet used to it; language is always evolving. Awful used to mean "awe inspiring" and terrific used mean "causing terror" and now they both mean the opposite and nobody questions it.
- jmcgough 8y agoLiterally (adv): 1) in a literal sense or manner. 2) (informal) used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible I literally just did.
- bcheung 8y agoThis is a fairly recent and controversial change to the word. It was updated officially in the dictionary after people kept misusing the word. So now it means both literally and the complete opposite of literally.
- netsharc 8y ago"literally" was used the way teenagers use them now in old literature too: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/literally-centuries-of-non-literal-literally/ https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/literally-centuri... But yeah people using this term still grinds my gears.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- grahamburger 8y agoPeople aren't misusing the word. Hyperbole always doesn't mean what it says. The meaning of the statement "my head just exploded" is that my head just exploded. The meaning of the statement "my head just literally exploded" is the same but maybe stronger. The hyperbole applies to the whole phrase and makes the whole thing mean something other than the literal definition of the words.
- wavefunction 8y agoThis seems to be a literal case of "laying down the law" when the phrase usually just refers to some authority figure disciplining a subject.
- ArchTypical 8y agoIdioms are not literal. The implication of my original comment, is now spelled out.
- tedivm 8y agoThe phrase "to lay down" has this meaning- > to state officially what someone must do or how they must do it As in, > The Natural Resources Department has laid down tough standards for water quality. Using that meaning this "literally" seems to work just fine.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 8y agoI suspect the author was thinking of the angle that a hotel/motel is mostly for "laying down". Though it's a pretty weak connection.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoI'm guessing it is intended as somewhat humorous. AirBnB is about "renting out beds for the night." The law here is addressing who can lay down to sleep, where and when and so forth.
- isoskeles 8y agoI don't think the other responses adequately explain what was attempted here. Laying down the law is an idiom. It doesn't have to do with the law. (Someone posted an example specific to laws, which confuses the rhetorical device.) As laying down the law does NOT have to do with law (e.g. I could "lay down the law" by punching someone in the head for touching my stamp collection), they add "literally" because Dennis Herrera is, in fact, the city attorney and is specifically applying the actual law. So rather than doing something unrelated to the law, which is what the idiom "lay down the law" allows for, the idiom's loose definition now has a literal application regarding the word "law", in this case.