Literally, Please Improve Your Vocabulary

One pet peeve I share with many others is misuse of the word, "literally." And this dude misuses it twice in one story regarding this week's collision of two satellites.

Infraction #1:

"At physical contact at orbital speeds, a hypersonic shock wave bursts outwards through the structures," Oberg said in e-mailed comments. "It literally shreds the material into confetti and detonates any fuels."

Yeah, the impact of two huge satellite spontaneously produces "small pieces or streamers of colored paper."

Infraction #2:

"The collision offers a literally heaven-sent opportunity for the Obama administration to take forceful, visible and long-overdo measures to address a long-ignored issue of 'space debris,'" Oberg said.

However this happened, I'm sure that "God and the angels" are involved, and want Obama to address the issue.

Yeah, I know he's not a writer by trade. That doesn't mean it still can't bug me.

Mars Phoenix Lander - Next Mission: Produce Dried Grass

I love it when people misuse the word, literally. It's particularly funny when it results in a patently preposterous statement. Such as this NASA scientist, on the continuing mission of the Mars Phoenix Lander:

"We are literally trying to make hay as the sun shines," Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told reporters.

Yeah, good luck with that. Let me know how it goes.