Wannabe Wordsmiths

Okay, I admit it. I watched a few minutes of the Paris Hilton interview on Larry King Live. And I had a couple of observations. The first was how much Paris was concentrating on trying to sound smart. The second was how much she likes the word “literally.” (I literally cried in my bed . . . I was literally terrified, etc.). Of course, I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea. By my count, she used the word at least four times, and I only caught half of the interview. Her use of the word was not entirely wrong – it’s not as if she said she was “literally scared to death” (to which I would respond, no, you were figuratively scared to death), but I get the feeling she just latched onto that word one day and decided she was going to throw it into her vernacular like a “like” or an “um.” She overuses it without really knowing what it means.

I’ve also noticed a growing trend of misusing the words “badly” and “myself.” I constantly hear people say that they “feel badly” about something or for someone. But unless they have problems with their nervous systems, I am pretty sure they mean that they “feel bad.” An old fashioned adjective may not be as fancy as an adverb, but it does happen to be correct in this context. After all, you wouldn’t say you felt sadly. Yet, someone seemed to think that adding more letters would make it sound better. Not so.

“Myself” is another one that seems to be frequently misused. I hear people say things like “if you have any questions, contact so-and-so or myself.” It’s like someone had this crazy epiphany one day, “Hey! You know what would sound smarter? Myself!!” But there’s nothing wrong with “me.” Myself is a reflexive pronoun. Here’s an example sentence, “I wrote this ridiculous grammar snob post all by myself.”