11 ms·
Do you mean literally as in • actually; really or • figuratively; virtually ?
by air7 7y ago
Do you mean literally as in
• actually; really
or
• figuratively; virtually
?
- gwd 7y agoThat one really needs to go away from the list; I refuse to accept "figuratively" as a valid definition for "literally", and will contradict / argue with / make fun of anyone who does so.
- sudhirj 7y agoUnfortunately, it's literally come to mean of opposite of what it actually means.
- cbkeller 7y agoI sympathise, but for better or worse the OED reports that people have been using "literally" to mean "figuratively"* since at least 1769: > 1769 F. Brooke *Hist. Emily Montague* IV. ccxvii. 83 "He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies." > 1801 *Spirit of Farmers' Museum* 262 "He is, literally, made up of marechal powder, cravat, and bootees." > 1825 J. Denniston *Legends Galloway* 99 "Lady Kirkclaugh, who, literally worn to a shadow, died of a broken heart." > 1863 F. A. Kemble *Jrnl. Resid. Georgian Plantation* 105 "For the last four years..I literally coined money." > 1876 ‘M. Twain’ *Adventures Tom Sawyer* ii. 20 "And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth." [*] Or as they, put it, "Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense"
- quotemstr 7y agoThis style of argument is not persuasive. It can only tell us that people have been making an error since 1769 or something. It can't tell us that we should tolerate this error in well constructed writing. You're demonstrated nothing.
- cbkeller 7y agoOne may or may not like it, but that is literally how language works.
- gwd 7y agoLanguage is a democracy. When people say thing like "My head literally exploded", they are voting for "literally" to be a meaningless intensifier. When I make fun of them, I'm voting for it to have the meaning, "This actually happened". Think about which way you want the language to be, and then use your vote.
- quotemstr 7y agoExactly. The post I argued against didn't provide any information about base rates, so it was not the kind of argument from popularity that you're describing. A lot of people write English. You can always find someone who screws it up in some way or another. Pointing out these screwups is not an argument that the screwup consists of a consensus language change.
- cgriswald 7y agoDemocracy implies you both have equal votes and there is an outcome that can become the norm. They are using the word 'literally' in a way that imbues additional meaning (or arguably makes a new word) without seeking permission from society or community. You are using (mild, well-meant) social coercion to try to suppress that usage. I'd say it's more anarchy than democracy.
- the_af 7y agoI don't think the intensifier is meaningless. It is meaningful because otherwise people wouldn't use it. It might be jarring to you, or the meaning not obvious, but an intensifier is by definition meaningful: it intensifies, after all :)
- justsubmit 7y agoOne may or may not like it, but that is language how literally works. You may not like my swapping the definitions of those words, but that is language how literally works. Therefore, according to your logic, it is valid.
- koboll 7y agoThose examples don't use literally to mean "literally" (or "figuratively"). Its meaning in those is closer to "pretty much", "as good as", or "almost like". It's more of a metaphorical intensifier, but there's clearly a metaphor being implied.
- scarejunba 7y ago"Tom was literally rolling in wealth" vs. "I'm literally going to kill him!" They look the same to me.
- dllthomas 7y agoIf you took away "literally" in both cases, it would still be understood to be figurative. "Literally" isn't doing its job of meaning literally, but it isn't meaning figuratively. I think the correct understanding is as hyperbolic use of the regular sense of literally. If I say, "I walked miles around the store looking for you" or "I waited for you for days", we don't say "sometimes miles means hundreds of feet and sometimes days means a few minutes". We say people sometimes exaggerate. In the same way, "Tom was rolling in wealth [so much so that it's almost as if he were literally rolling in wealth, but of course that interpretation is silly and I'm using hyperbole to exaggerate how rolling-in-wealth Tom was]".
- scarejunba 7y agoI find this convincing.
- pessimizer 7y agoI don't understand the distinction you're trying to draw here. Literally 100% of the time modern people use the word "literally" in a way that means "figuratively" it's to engage in hyperbole but it's also to explicitly mark that what follows is not to be taken literally. As you say, you can engage in hyperbole without marking it.
- dllthomas 7y ago
- Dylan16807 7y ago> Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense That's not a definition of "figuratively".
- bloat 7y agoIt isn't really used to mean 'figuratively' though is it? When someone says "I was so cross I literally exploded!" they are not explicitly pointing out that they didn't really explode, they're just using the word for some kind of emphasis.
- dylan604 7y agoBut words have meaning, er, at least they used to. "I literally exploded" is not accurate, as they didn't actually explode. Maybe "I laterally exploded"? That word would work equally as well as it still makes no sense.
- iikoolpp 7y agoWords have meanings, and the meaning of literally is also emphasis. Bad prescriptivism.
- gwd 7y ago> Words have meanings, and the meaning of literally is also emphasis. Bad prescriptivism. The insistence that simple emphasis is a valid use for "literally" -- and quoting M-W or the OED to support your case -- is just as prescriptive the insistence that it doesn't. Language is socially constructed by the people using it; we all "vote" by using it, and by policing its use. So let me ask you this: Do you want "literally" to be a meaningless emphasis word (and thus lose its ability to specify "this actually happened")? Or do you want "literally" to mean "I am not speaking figuratively, this thing actually happened"? If you want the former, then I disagree with you, but sure, go ahead and use your "vote" to police people objecting to "literally" meaning "figuratively". But if you want the latter, then join me in insisting that it means "this actually happened".
- iikoolpp 7y agoWhat is this shit response? > The insistence that simple emphasis is a valid use for "literally" -- and quoting M-W or the OED to support your case -- is just as prescriptive the insistence that it doesn't. It's not prescriptivist because I'm describing the meaning it is currently ascribed to. > Do you want "literally" to be a meaningless emphasis word (and thus lose its ability to specify "this actually happened")? Yes? I use the language everyone else uses, not the Pure language that everyone decides is the only version in the world the second they enter their 20s. Why are you dying on this hill? Why are you mad that people are deviating from your One True Ideal of what you think the language should be? It's not like there aren't other words that you can substitute in; it's whining for the sake of whining against language change. Not to mention, you're dying on the hill against a language change that already happened hundreds of years ago.
- ScottBurson 7y agoI like how Ambrose Bierce put it: It is bad enough to exaggerate, but to affirm the truth of the exaggeration is intolerable.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoObligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/725/ https://xkcd.com/725/. And another one, for 'gwd downthread: https://xkcd.com/1108/ https://xkcd.com/1108/.
- dang 7y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21146964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21146964.