My book club almost fell apart over the word 'literally'

One of the members insisted we couldn't discuss a chapter until we defined every vague word the author used, so we spent 45 minutes arguing if 'literally' meant 'figuratively' in that one sentence. I finally just googled the author's old interviews and found him saying he uses it for dramatic effect, which shut down the whole debate. Has anyone else had a single word kill an entire meeting like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah32010d ago

Honestly sounds like the real problem was that one member, not the word lol

elliotm5710d ago

That thing about defining every vague word first - I've been there before and it's a total dead end, @hannah320 is right that the member was the real issue. What worked for my group was setting a hard rule: one person picks a confusing word, looks it up on their phone (right then, fast), and we move on within 2 minutes max. No deep dives into what the author might have meant unless it's actually key to the plot, which it almost never is. 'Literally' is a perfect example of a word that's been used loosely for centuries, so digging into it just wastes time you could spend talking about the actual story. Honestly, your Google move was smart and probably saved future meetings from the same mess. Maybe suggest a quick "word clarification" timer at the start of your next book club to keep things moving.

samflores10d ago

Wait, did anybody actually look up how Jane Austen or Charles Dickens used "literally" back in the day? They tossed it around the same way. The member was picking a fight, not clarifying language.