If there is one “misuse” of a word that is likely to make a grammar pedant go crazy, it is the use of “literally” to mean “not literally”: figuratively or metaphorically. But like with most things about pedants, they are wrong. For the millionth time, grammar is a way to understand how language works. It is not a way of constraining it. Grammar snobs are ridiculous in the same way that physicists would be who complain that relativistic mechanics doesn’t act the way that Newton’s theory does. But grammar snobs can get away with this because most people don’t understand that grammar is a model and not a definition.
But if you were to click over to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and look at the entry for “literally,” you would notice something interesting. The first definition of the word is, “in a literal sense or manner: actually.” But the second definition of the word is, “in effect: virtually.” Now I should be clear: I try very hard to never use “literally” in the second sense. I like words to be clean. And I definitely don’t like to get into arguments (or cabs, elevators, or even really city blocks) with grammar pedants. They’re just exhausting.
There is something weird about the word “literally,” though. It’s kind of useless. Is it ever necessary to say, “He was standing literally in front of me?” About the only time the word is useful is as in, “He took my exaggeration literally.” And it just isn’t used that way very much. So there’s another reason not to use word. It is very rarely necessary. It just stands in the way of communicating what you want to say. But there is a reason that people use the word so much, and it isn’t unjustified.
“Literally” is mostly used as an intensifier: a word meant to add force to whatever is near it. So just as someone might say, “He was really big,” they might also say, “He was literally a giant.” Used in this way, those who “misuse” the word are actually right. Because if the man was André the Giant, it would be redundant to say that he was literally a giant; he was just a giant — it’s in the name. It’s little wrinkles like this that the grammar snobs almost never think about. But I don’t suppose it greatly matters.
But this explains why it is that the second definition of “literally” is the more common one. It isn’t a very useful word in its “correct” form. People love intensifiers — especially in spoken form. Note the extreme popularity of “fucking” used in this context. In fact, with minor syntactical changes, it can generally be used to replace “literally” in a sentence when it is used this way. But what the grammar pedants need to understand is that most of the time when they use literally “correctly” they are being redundant. And that is an even bigger sin than using literally in a way that literally everyone understands.
Why are conservatives so obsessed with Benghazi? The conventional view is that they see it as a great weapon against Hillary Clinton, and that’s certainly true. Seven bipartisan inquiries, including one by the GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee, have together debunked every single accusation that there was some kind of scandal associated with the attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US staff members in Libya in 2012 — for instance, that the administration issued a “stand down” order that kept US military from sending in a rescue team. Yet an eighth investigation, by the Select Committee on Benghazi, grinds on.
Happy labor day, comrades! Do you know why labor day is today and not on May Day — International Workers’ Day? Well, it’s because of the commies and anarchists. President Grover Cleveland was afraid of associating the international worker movements with the American movements. Of course, Cleveland wasn’t all that keen on the labor movement. But he made Labor Day a national holiday! Why? Because he was trying to make nice after totally screwing up in the government’s response to the Pullman Strike.
Notice the situation here: Pullman thought that his workers should suffer because of the bad economic conditions. But he didn’t think he should suffer at all. During the first years following our financial crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble, there was endless repetition that what the country needed was “shared sacrifice.” But if you dug down even a little into these pleas, you saw that it was all sacrifice by the lower classes — none by the upper. For example: we heard constantly that we had to cut Social Security, but we couldn’t even mention raising the payroll tax cap. (That would be class warfare!) The bankers were bailed out without much fuss but homeowners were just left to their foreclosures. And there were large cuts to social programs but only a tiny increase in the very top marginal tax rate and only because it was going up anyway.
In 1894, of course, the government was scared. Grover Cleveland and the rest of the government wanted to make nice with organized labor. They probably had Louis XVI of France in mind and were trying to hedge their bets. So only six days after the strike ended, Cleveland signed the legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday.
On this day in 1303, 
Whole Foods workers are better off than many retail and fast food workers. Permanent, full-time employees earn considerably more than minimum wage, and both part-time and full-time workers receive health insurance: part-timers working at least twenty hours a week can buy full-cost coverage after working 400 hours, and full-timers can get lower-cost coverage after working 800 hours. Executive pay is kept in check, relative to other major corporations, and the management structure is more horizontal than vertical. However, wages for many Whole Foods employees fall far below a living wage. Cashier wages range between $8 and hour to $14 for permanent employees, while workers in other parts of the store make between $10 and $15 an hour. Despite its claims that Whole Foods honors all stakeholders, many team members including full-time workers, are forced to rely on food stamps, and a recent study found that 17% of Whole Food’s Massachusetts employees are enrolled in Medicaid.
Via Talking Points Memo, 
There is a Polish legend called the 
On or about this day in 1522, the 