"No. No it is not. You do not flip a switch, sit back and watch your character do it's own thing, which is the only way it would literally be cruise control."

Wow! What car do you have where you flip a switch and cruise control just completely drives for you?

On my car, I use cruise control during the long uneventful parts of the journey where obstacles are at a minimum. It means I don't have to focus on a lot of the things I might have to pay attention to in heavy traffic -- like speeding up and down, sharp turns, etc. -- but I do still have to keep my hands on the steering wheel and do the bare minimum of work for it to be called driving.

Whether my description of cruise control is slightly flawed or not, in no way is that part of the fight (or any other fight) LITERALLY cruise control. Way to totally miss the point. I wasn't complaining about his use of cruise control as a figure of speech that describes the ease of the fight -- I think his metaphor was quite apt -- but "literally," as I said in my first post, means that what you are saying is not a metaphor or other figurative language. I mean, I JUST explained this. Ease of fight is like cruise control, ease of fight does not equal cruise control.

You've got a pretty intense reaction to a very minor wording choice.

Actually, it's pretty close to "literally cruise control" for the dps. All you've got to do is your rotation and dodge traps. Maybe toss a slow out. It's extremely light on complexity once Rageface is dead. Feels a lot like driving without having to worry about the pedals, I just steer.

"Way to totally miss the point."

One could say the same thing about someone who chooses to write a paragraph or two about 1 of the 1,644 words in an article.

@Skarn: Sigh.

It's not close to "literally" cruise control at all. I'll be as clear as I know how: I completely understand what he was doing by using cruise control as a metaphor for the simplicity of that phase of the fight. That's a perfect way to describe it: that it's LIKE cruise control. But by saying it is "literally cruise control," he is saying that he is pressing a button or switch to activate a specific mode of game play and most of the work happens automatically, he just has to point his character in the right direction. Unless he is botting, that is not what is happening. It may be very simple and easy and not require much thought, but it is not actually cruise control. And to be literal, it would have to actually be cruise control.

I don't know why this world gives so many people so much trouble. Just for your reference, the dictionary.com definition: "In accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical."

@Cutaia: What does it matter to you what part I choose to write a comment about? Why the hostility? I found this article enlightening and informative. I haven't done this fight or even raided in the Firelands past trash runs (OK, first time I was in Shannox accidentally patted into our raid when we were fighting some other trash, but that doesn't count), so this article was very useful. However, I have nothing to say about it. He gave the information, I read it and understood it, there we go. I can't share my own experiences with the fight, I don't have questions: what point exactly was I supposed to get that I didn't? And you completely misunderstanding what I'm saying is quite a different matter than me choosing to focus on one word the columnist used in order to help people understand a phrase that is very often used incorrectly.

A-ha! I see what you mean. You probably would have preferred "practically cruise control" or something similar. You're still overreacting to something incredibly minor though. :)

Exactly, Skarn! I'm not disagreeing with the concept, just the incorrect wording. It's not really a preference ... it's the difference between being correct or incorrect.

As far as my reaction goes, it's not like it's some huge deal to me, just something I find interesting to discuss. I am a copy editor, so being precise (and correct!) in my language is something I am paid to do. I don't think I'm over reacting by simply pointing out the error in hopes that people who read my comment may come away with a little bit better grasp of the English language. The only reason I've written so much about it is that people keep posting and disagreeing and making the exact same error in their disagreement that I was writing about. Sure, call me a grammar Nazi or say I'm making too big a deal about something not important or whatever, but you can't say that I am wrong in this case, and if you do I will lay out the reasons that I am not in the best way I can.

Also, the only reason I'm remarking on this specific instance of incorrect word usage is that the columnists here get paid to write, and I think I remember seeing some mention of a copy editor for this site who I assume gets paid too. If you get paid to write, you should use the correct word, so my mentioning serves the double purpose of showing that it was wrong and educating the writer so that next time they know what to do right.

I missed this column last week so my comment will seem somewhat tardy. As one who strives to use words correctly as a matter of principle, I fully understand and appreciate Jeremy's attitude toward the misuse of the word "literally".

With that in mind, I hope you will believe that this comment is made without malice but is in (nearly!) the same spirit professed in the third paragraph of Jeremy's 9:04 PM reply. I qualify this only because, while Jeremy does claim to be a copy editor by trade, I doubt that he is being paid for his contributions to this thread.

Regarding the sentence, "I don't think I'm over reacting [sic] by simply pointing out the error ... ." the word "overreacting" should be a compound word.

@nieboh: Whoops, you got me. I made one mistake out of several comments. I never said I was perfect, but as you remarked, I'm not getting paid to make comments on here. If this was something I was writing for a newspaper, magazine or website and was getting paid, you can bet that there wouldn't be any mistake like that, but as it is, I glance over my comments once before hitting Add Comment and that's it. I expect more from the actual paid contributors to a site.

Also, I might add that making a word compound or not mistakenly is a whole lot different than completely misusing a word.

If you want to be nitpicky in terms of grammar or word/letter spacing and placement, in the first paragraph of your comment, the period should be inside the quotation marks around the word literally, not outside. It should read as follows: ... attitude toward the misuse of the word "literally." I do appreciate, however, that you said "toward" and not "towards," unlike many people. That's another pet peeve of mine: towards, afterwards, etc. Once seen it cannot be unseen (or unheard)!

Would someone explain to me why Cutaia is getting voted down when he's 100% right?