Yeah, the whole "one with nature" trope is kinda ridiculous when you realize that millions of people lived in the Americas before European contact, with thousands of different cultures, hundreds of different languages and religious belief systems, and multiple cities of tens or hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.…

So in other words, you have no actual evidence to support your perspective, aside from "I hate change and don't understand how language works". Cool.

So... you never use "really", then? And you never use "extremely"? Because these words demonstrate the exact same type of semantic shift. This process has been going on for hundreds of years in English, with a wide range of words, a few of which I mentioned above. What makes "literally" so different? Why is it OK to…

Not that unique. Plenty of languages don't mark case.

It doesn't mean "figuratively". It's being used as an intensifier, in the same tradition as "really" (from "real"), "very" (originally meaning "true"; it's from the same roots as "verity", "verily", etc.), "extremely" (from "extreme", originally the farthest out point of something), and several other intensifiers.

Aww, I'm just at the point in rereading the books where he... you know... stops singing for awhile... I have a sad now. :(

Sadly, everyone seems to have overlooked the very best part of this episode—wee Roger! Keep your eye on that kid, non-book-readers.

I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure there's no more "Claire almost gets raped" scenes in the book. They just kinda happened to come excessively close this episode.

And he never has anything to do with the plot or anything. He's just there. Waiting. Watching. For his time will come.

I'm really curious where they're going to be ending the next episode of Outlander. It's pretty obvious what section of the book it'll cover, but the real question is which bit it'll end at.

I didn't even think of her and I'm ashamed I didn't! Nanny is the best mother. In fact, she is the mother. Do not mess with her.

The second book just plain confused me at first. I actually thought I'd picked up the third book by mistake.

Blue star, at least. :)

In fact, forget the blackjack!

That bit's canon. I imagine the alternative would be handfasting, which comes up in one of the later books—mutual consent + sex = married. I don't know that the church recognized it, but I'm pretty sure it "counted" legally, and the legal side is all that really mattered in this case (although obviously not to Jamie).

Who doesn't love Rupert?

+1 for Zombie Hunters! Love that series. It's an extremely interesting look not at what happens when the zombie apocalypse starts, but rather what happens next—what happens to society once you've gotten past the "trying to survive" stage?

I needed the chart to sort out the timelines, though. I was so confused at first...

Aw man... that bit gets me every time.

Yeah, I interpreted it somewhat similarly—that Claire felt that the problem was that Jamie had been, well, completely violated in every way without fighting back. What she was trying to do was give him a way to fight back, giving him a second go at it, in a sense. And showing that he did have control over his life and…