My wife Amanda and I have a possible disagreement about the following two sentences. I say that they mean the same thing; she says they don't. I say it's a "possible" disagreement because it's possible she thinks I'm right but just gets sick of dorky me, the language cop of the household, making fun of things she says. Anyway, the sentences.
I. That knife is a tomato knife.
II. That knife is literally a tomato knife.
I'm going to try, in the manner of a scientist, to make the strongest case possible for the view with which I disagree. It has to do with the intention of the knife's manufacturer. The second sentence has a different meaning because it emphasizes that the knife is meant to be used on tomatoes. A different emphasis means there is a shade of different meaning.
But is there more than one way to be a tomato knife? One literal, the other unspecified?
I should admit that my objection to the second sentence is mainly esthetic. It has an extra word that I think adds no value and that the first sentence therefore is a superior expression. Write with nouns and verbs, someone has advised, and in general I think it's a good idea to regard with suspicion adverbial modifiers. For example, I hate it when, already suffering from the Sunday night blues, some pretty face on the ten o'clock news reports to me and the world that there was a fire and the building "completely destroyed." Or, similarly, when the commentating gasbags are pontificating earlier on Sunday, you might hear one of them say, "Obama is fairly unique in that, blah, blah, blah."
Some things do not admit of degrees. Uniqueness. Destruction. Tomato knives.