Let me tell you what is literally the most annoying thing in the entire world: the word “literally.” It’s literally driving me crazy. It’s literally so frustrating. It’s literally misused literally all the time.

I don’t have an anger issue toward the word, just the people who don’t use it correctly. The real problem with literally is that literally no one knows what it means…like, literally no one. Literally can literally only be used as the opposite to figuratively, which relates to a figure of speech. Literally means it actually happened, no joke, no figurative sense.

I’m literally bombarded with literallys every time I step outside. I’ve heard reporters on NPR spewing the l-bomb incorrectly, and it literally kills me. It’s literally an epidemic; it doesn’t see gender, age or race. Literally everyone is susceptible to catching this virus.

When you say, “I literally peed my pants I was laughing so hard,” you are saying you, in fact, urinated yourself from laughter. Why you are recounting this story to your friends, I don’t know, because in regular society this act would be literally so humiliating.

If you think your teacher “literally bit my head off in class,” you should probably go see a doctor because you no longer have a head. Your teacher is digesting it.

If you think your backpack literally weighs a ton, you should think again. A ton is literally 2,000 pounds. If you attempted to carry a ton of books, papers or pencils, your back would literally break in half like a toothpick.

People, please think about what you are saying before you say it. I literally cringe every time I walk through the halls. I literally cannot escape literally everyone literally misusing the word literally. Pretty soon I’m going to literally lose my mind.

Like…literally.

Other commonly misused words:

enormity: used in place of “enormous”, actually means “evil”

decimate: used in place of “destroy”, actually means “to reduce by 10 percent”

ultimate: used in place of “the best”, actually means “the last”