this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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I don't get why it grinds everyone gears. Isn't it just an hyperbole? (y'know like for the hypersoups ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
What bothered me about it was that they're stating it's everyone doing these things, but I think it's probably a small minority.
Someone sourced a couple higher in the comments. Their info showed 2% of the populous doing what "literally everyone" is doing. The other stat they included was 80% of the populous had never used a sleep aid in their life. So the talk of it being hyperbole is even a stretch.
Saying literally everyone in the U.S. is a cigarette smoker would be more accurate. (Not accurate)
It is hyperbole, but the problem is that it's using a word that was supposed to specify that something was not hyperbole as hyperbole, rendering it useless.
... Or... Because it's a word specifically meant to indicate it is not hyperbolic, using it in that way is literally the superlative hyperbole.
At the cost of the word's intended use, unfortunately. RIP literally. It literally died.
Now you have to hit literally in the chest with an adrenaline shot to bring lividity into its decaying body.
quite literally
actually literally
A good point, I haven't seen "quite literally" used to mean "figuratively." Perhaps there's some usefulness to be had yet.
Another example of hyperbole.
Okay, rendering it far less useful.
People, including many famous authors, have been using literally this way for hundreds of years.
Yes, but its use to mean its opposite didn't become widespread until the past decade or so.
People have been complaining about it longer than a decade, so you're way off there.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
Tldr: common use in the "figurative" sense for since the 1800s.
Incorrect. People have been using it the way you are complaining about for hundreds of years. It’s a new phenomenon that people complain about it being used the way you disapprove of. I’d attribute the recent complaints to lack of literary exposure and anti intellectualism in recent years.
Except some of the earliest uses of the word "literally" that didn't pertain to letters and glyps we in the form of hyperbole.
Literal as factual and literal as exaggeration both about the same age and precedent, and have been used long enough that it's just part of the English language at this point.
May as well complain about how "discreet" and "indiscreet" are opposites, but "flammable" and "inflammable" are the same.
https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/wordplay/autoanto.html
English is a language of contradictions and massively confusing syntax. News at 11.
Is that a LinksTheSun reference
It might've been where I got it from :p
It wasn't conscious but I used to watch what he did awhile back.
I think because it's a pretty gross mischaracterization of the demographic? Usually hyperbole is used for effect to more emphatically illustrate a generally true or accepted point.
The number of Americans who use nightly sleep aids is extremely low. Like, a vast vast majority of people never take them. I don't know anyone who regularly takes them, and honestly I don't know many who take them even occasionally.
So this meme uses hyperbole to drive home the idea that Americans have a pill problem regarding sleep aids and no one in Europe does. I have no idea how the numbers shake out in Europe but I can say in America it is not as characterized. So it's less hyperbole (exaggeration of a fact) and more like a lie.
Ok so I did a quick search and:
So yeah the amount of people "litteraly using medication to sleep every night" ia quite low. The use amongst the population is still generally high so I wouldn't directly classify that hyperbole as a lie. (but I'm not claiming I'm right on that it's a feelings calculation).
I'm also pretty sure these numbers are underreported for example because of the stigma around using "recreational drugs" as an illegal mean to self medicate.
Also it's nice for you to have nobody (that you know of ofc) struggling to sleep.
Where I'd personally feel more nitpicky about that meme is the opposition with Europe. I don't think we sleep much better. A lot of people around me (and myself included) heavily rely on sedation in one form or another to have any semblance of sleep. Although there might be some selection bias since alot of folks I know are handicaped in one way or another so we don't tend to have the best physical and psychic health ^^'
Appreciate you finding numbers when I didn't go to that effort. It makes me wonder if numbers are pretty similar globally. 2% having chronic insomnia doesn't sound completely out of line to me.
Hey \o
The planet litterally when halfway around the sun during the time I took to respond to you.
The definition of chronic insomnia is "at least 3 times a week for at least 3 monthes" (simplified but that's the idea)
So the real number of people with chronic insomnia is at the very least 2% but it's probably closer to those 18%.
I hope time has been kind to you in those last 6 monthes. I've got a new treatment that allows me to have a good night of sleep almost everyday and it's a godsend ^^