Literally ...

As my wife dozes, I have been doing some reading online (updates on her after I go get some dinner). I get James Taranto's Best of the Web Today column in my e-mail, and have enjoyed it for a few years now. A lot of his ideas are politically creative, though sometimes he tries to be a bit too cute. Not today, however, when he went after one of my least favorite grammatical solecisms, in an item called “The Wet Look.” He comments on an article by Tom Gantert of the Ann Arbor News, in which the writer says, “Peirce literally gushes about a homeless man she got to know the last six months at the shelter named ‘Vittorio.’ ” Quips Taranto: “We hope the reporter was standing back.” The image is less than pleasant, but think of it as directed towards the reporter who came up with it in the first place, rather than the poor gal subjected to it.