There are certain phrases that can be read in two ways, for example

“I bumped into an old friend last week”

This can mean

• I met an old friend by chance last week
• I collided with an old friend last week

The first is the metaphorical meaning and the second is the literal meaning. When we want to make sure the listener knows which meaning we intend, we use the word ‘literally‘ (or ‘not literally‘).

Or that’s the theory.

There are also certain phrases that the meaning is so obvious that there is no ambiguity; you are not going to be ‘literally over the moon” unless you work for NASA.

There follows some phrases that I’ve recently heard with the names of the guilty parties where appropriate. See if you can work out in which category they belong: