It's literally been going on too long

One of the things I do far too often is think about things too much. Well, that and I always try and find a humourous situation in stuff.

Being a Ray Mears fan and being the owner of a Sky+ box puts me in the great position of being able to watch the great man approximately 23.5 hours a day... obviously the 30 minutes left is for bathroom breaks and to stock up on fake fishy things and chocolate flavoured Collons.

Without going into too much detail, Ray Mears once said something in one episode that has stuck with me ever since and that I refer to every day. Honestly.

During an episode when he was constructing a kayak without modern tools he made the comment: "The thing with these old tools is that thay're not very ergonomic. I woke up in the middle of the night with terrible pain in my hands and this morning my hands are literally on fire."

Yep - poor old Ray's hands were literally on fire. Except they obviously weren't. So now every time someone misuses the word literally I take notice, as do my friends. And on top of that I now regularly make ludicrous statements that include the word literally.

Some examples I've overheard:
Commentary for football: "That goal has literally knocked the stuffing out of them."
In a news report: "Korea is literally the tip of the iceberg."

Some examples of ludicrous things I've said:
"I've literally been there 53 trillion times."
On the post here about being wired.
"My typos literally have a life of their own."
"I literally didn't stop, yesterday."
"I've literally just bought a ton of food to cheer me up."

The problem now is I'm finding it difficult to stop using the word 'literally' and when I hear others use it in a serious sense I can't stop chuckling and thinking of poor Ray's scorched hands. But I don't know whether I want to. I like having a smile on my face when someone says something. Even if it is a serious documentary about politics or something - the word 'literally' with still induce a smile.

Give it a go - go 'literally' spotting with me.