stalin420 [none/use name]

I mean because it makes Europe and the USA look much bigger than they are, which undermines the importance / relevance of the rest of the world.

As if Günther wouldn’t insist on using the Mercator projection

Intentionally using dashes - which I also happen to like (more than brackets anyway [they feel too computery]) - just to mix things up a little

I’ve never agreed with someone more strongly in my life. You’re my Lenin.

You can’t actually use “figuratively” when you use “literally” though.

“It is figuratively raining cats and dogs” isn’t actually correct. You have to say “it’s raining cats and dogs, figuratively speaking.” “Figuratively” describes the expression. It doesn’t modify it.

“It’s literally raining cats and dogs” does modify the expression, and in an important way. Sometimes people say it’s for adding emphasis, which isn’t wrong, but being more precise about it, “literally” here is saying that the amount of rain currently happening is the precise amount of rain that the expression was invented to describe. Which actually is pretty close to the prescriptively correct usage of “literally” to begin with but as applied to expressions and not words - asserting that the literal meaning of the expression currently applies. I’m not just saying it’s raining cats and dogs, it really is raining cats and dogs right now in the true sense of that expression.

When you say “it’s literally raining cats and dogs” you are speaking figuratively. Figuratively describes the mode of speech. It doesn’t describe the amount of rain.

What’s more, often the use of “literally” isn’t even a figurative mode of speech but actually a metaphorical mode of speech. “I literally died laughing” is not a figurative mode of speech. It is a metaphorical mode of speech.

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