Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. We all know someone who repeats a certain word frequently in conversations. Maybe it's "like," or "essentially" or "literally." ...

It’s the literal truth, we say, as if that “literal” conveyed an extra measure of authority. Actually, literal meanings are frequently wrong, and often confusing. A recent example is the “naked wife” ...

Grammar nerds everywhere have long lamented the widespread misuse of the word "literally." As anyone who paid attention in grade school knows, "literally" means "in a literal or strict sense, as ...

My editor here in the WGBH Newsroom, Aaron Schachter, is a little bit of a curmudgeon. And in recent weeks he's had a linguistic bee in his bonnet that he will not let go. "I am literally going crazy, ...

For years, smart people have used an easy trick to figure out whether the person they're talking to is an idiot: Do they use the word "literally" correctly or not? But recently, a civil war has raged ...

IT IS literally impossible to be literal. I know what you’re thinking. Literal is the word we use when we mean exactly what we say, and metaphorical or figurative is what we say when we’re playing ...

We all know someone who repeats a certain word frequently in conversations. Maybe it's "like," or "essentially" or "literally." That likely sounds familiar, and it can be a bit distracting—especially ...