‘You must leave immediately:’ This bar will kick you out if you say ‘literally’

Kardashians, you’ve been warned: One verbal misstep in this bar could get you sent out the door.

Continental, a bar in New York City’s East Village, says it will ban customers from saying the word “literally” in a fight to stop the spread of “Kardashianism” — the affliction of relying on “literally” as a crutch while speaking. (“Literally” is included prominently in E! News’ Ultimate Kardashian Dictionary: “The Kards use this word in exchange for seriously, honestly, completely.”)

The sign banning “literally” has been hanging on the bar’s door for about a week, Grub Street reports.

“This is the most overused, annoying word in the English language and we will not tolerate it,” the sign says.

The sign establishes some ground rules, too: If you’re caught uttering the word that must not be spoken, you have five minutes to down your beer and exit gracefully, the sign says.

But if you begin a sentence with “I literally,” the punishment is much more severe — you have to get out immediately, according to the sign.

Not everyone found the sign is particularly funny, though.

“People like this don't give a s--- about language,” Allegra Hobbs, a New York-based reporter, wrote on Twitter. “They're just self-important, generally misogynistic blow hards who get off on feeling superior to (mostly) young women.”

But the owner of the dive bar, Trigger Smith, told Time Out New York in a phone interview that it was meant as a joke.

“My bar would be empty if I enforced the sign,” Smith told Time out. “How could I mean that? How could I be serious?”

Smith added that anyone upset out about the playful language policing needs to calm down.

“I literally feel sorry for anybody who would take this seriously,” Smith told Time Out.

Still, Smith told Grub Street that he won’t back down on his dislike of the word “literally.”

“It’s not just millennials,” Smith told Grub Street. “Now you hear newscasters using ‘literally’ every three minutes on the Sunday news shows. What’s annoying is people aren’t even aware they’re saying it. How could you be so unaware of your words that it’s coming out every couple minutes?”

Regardless, anyone mad at the bar for the joke policy (and anyone kicked out for literally violating it) won’t have to think about Continental soon enough. The bar is slated to close this year, Eater reports, after nearly 30 years in business.

A developer bought the building where the dive bar is located — and two others — for $150 million, The Real Deal reports.

“It's truly heartbreaking that we and so many Old Skool places are falling by the wayside but unless you own your building that's how it goes,” Smith wrote on Continental’s website.

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 5:41 PM with the headline "‘You must leave immediately:’ This bar will kick you out if you say ‘literally’."