A slight piece of exaggeration from the Croydon Guardian. They are talking about the success of Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae Sauce (as seen on Dragon’s Den). They claim that
The sauce was literally flying off the shelves in the Balham branch of Sainsbury’s on Thursday night
Well I’ve been in the Balham Sainbury’s a couple of time in the last few days and I certainly haven’t seen any evidence of flying sauce.
“Literally” has a very specific meaning. I think that the word the journalist was looking for is “figuratively”.
Somebody in the last issue of Private Eye claimed that Tony Blair had “literally hung me out to dry”.