I am not a grammar Nazi, but I do have a pet peeve about people who misuse the word "literally". Some people misuse "literally" to add emphasis; however, lawyers for Rachel Maddow are claiming that when she uses "literally", she is really speaking "hyperbolically", and her misuse of this word could costs her ten million dollars! Really! Literally!
On July 22, 2019, Rachel Maddow was on her show discussing the the One America News Network (OANN), a San Diego based company part of the Herring Networks, Inc. Maddow called OANN “the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America” and is that it is “paid Russian propaganda” because one of its reporters, Kristian Rouz, had previously worked for Sputnik, a Russian state-backed news outlet.
Of course, Rachel Maddow has a long history of insinuating anyone and every one whose politics she doesn’t like (e.g. Julian Assange, Nigel Farage) is a Russian asset working for Vladimir Putin, but this time, she now she been careless with her words and those insinuations became clear accusations, that OANN is receiving payments from Russia:
According to Maddow’s lawyer, Theodore J. “Ted” Boutrous Jr:... Trump`s favorite more Trumpier than Fox TV network [OANN], the one that the president has been promoting and telling everyone they should watch and is better than Fox, turns out that network has a full time on air reporter who covers U.S. politics who is simultaneously on the payroll of the Kremlin. What?
... this super right wing news outlet that the president has repeatedly endorsed as a preferable alternative to Fox News, because he thinks Fox is insufficiently pro-Trump, so now he likes this is other outlet better. We literally learned today that that outlet the president is promoting shares staff with the Kremlin.
I mean, what? I mean, it`s an easy thing to throw out, you know, like an epitaph in the Trump era, right? Hey, that looks like Russian propaganda. In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda. They`re on air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government.
In other words, when Maddow makes clear factual allegations and adds that they are “really literally” true, then she is just an entertainer, making a joke, and the public should know better than to take network news seriously. If this is the case, then there is no such law as slander.“Her comment, therefore, is a quintessential statement ‘of rhetorical hyperbole, incapable of being proved true or false,’”
The plaintiffs are calling in a UC Santa Barbara linguistics professor Stefan Thomas Gries to testify and among the many citations proving the case are the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary definitions of “really” and “literally.”
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Rachel Maddow Asks San Diego Judge to Throw Out OAN Defamation Suit
https://timesofsandiego.com/business...famation-suit/
Rachel Maddow Faces Slapdown by UC Linguistics Professor in Defamation Suit
https://timesofsandiego.com/business...famation-suit/
http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rac...how/2019-07-22