Literally.

Ever notice when the word "literally" is employed for emphasis the speaker couldn't possibly mean it?

I'll give you a recent example. Over the weekend, the LA Times quoted a resident who complained about a Grateful Dead concert that happened near his Carson, California home. He said: "Let alone the type of music and the noise, people were roaming all over the neighborhood. ... Everything you could think of was going on. Literally." (D. Pierson, "Green Day's Not-So-Punk Rock", LA Times, April 30, 2005; emphasis supplied.)

Literally?

Are we to believe that human genome mapping was taking place? How about atom splitting?

These are things I could think of quite readily. Somehow I don't think the fans of Jerry Garcia and the boys were entertaining themselves outside this guy's neighborhood with such pursuits.

Not literally, ok?