Faith writes:
You insist on YOUR meaning of "literal" ... and YOUR meaning of "interpretation"
hi Faith
you really stuck it to Schrafinator there.
Schrafinator is so old-fashioned when he thinks that the world "literal" has a single unambiguous meaning.
I think you have successfully shown that you have YOUR understanding of literal, and other people have their own. Just the same as the way that you have YOUR understanding of "tomato".
You must have noticed that in supermarkets you always see bags labelled with "tomato", but containing potatoes, apples, and oranges. This is always happening to me.
Of course when i say "labelled with tomato" I mean that the apples, potatoes and oranges are actually loose, in buckets, and not labelled at all.
I have to warn you that I'm using MY understanding of the word "labelled". When I say that vegetables and fruit are provided in "labelled" bags, I mean that they are in buckets.
It's a bit eccentric of me, I admit. My friends always say i'm eccentric when I go out to buy tomatoes but come back with apples.
Of course my friends are using THEIR understanding of the word "eccentric".
mick