• SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    “Literally everyone”

    You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    • Shapillon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I don’t get why it grinds everyone gears. Isn’t it just an hyperbole? (y’know like for the hypersoups ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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)

      • samus12345@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            At the cost of the word’s intended use, unfortunately. RIP literally. It literally died.

            • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Now you have to hit literally in the chest with an adrenaline shot to bring lividity into its decaying body.

              quite literally

              actually literally

              • samus12345@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                A good point, I haven’t seen “quite literally” used to mean “figuratively.” Perhaps there’s some usefulness to be had yet.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes, but its use to mean its opposite didn’t become widespread until the past decade or so.

            • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              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.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          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.

      • theragu40@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • Shapillon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Ok so I did a quick search and:

          • 2% of americans declare using sleeping aids daily.
          • 18% declare using some some

          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 ^^’

          • theragu40@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • Shapillon@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              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 ^^

        • Shapillon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It might’ve been where I got it from :p

          It wasn’t conscious but I used to watch what he did awhile back.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yeah but there has to be some reality to it, sleep for a year makes sense because you’re saying ‘I’m super tired and I could sleep for a real long time’ all of which is true, this is saying ‘a majority of people in place A do this thing that is unknown in place B’ which isn’t even close to an approximation of reality.