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> If I say "I feel so embarrassed I could literally die", I am using literally in its proper sense, but hyperbolically. I'd rather say they were using "literal
by gwd 6y ago
> If I say "I feel so embarrassed I could literally die", I am using literally in its proper sense, but hyperbolically.
I'd rather say they were using "literally" as a meaningless intensifier. But here's the thing: We already have loads of intensifiers. But we don't have very many ways of saying, "I'm not speaking hyperbolically, this actually happened."
Think of all the words that, etymologically speaking, should mean "this actually happened", but in fact don't mean anything anymore: really, truly, definitely, and so on. The reason they didn't say "I feel so embarrassed, I really could die" is that "really" has lost its strength from overuse; now they've moved on and are trying to do the same thing to "literally".
"Literally" is my (figurative) line in the sand: This far and no farther. Language is defined by its speakers: I'm an English speaker, and so I get to vote on how the language is used. As such, I will continue to make fun of people who say "I could literally die" as long as it is possible, and I encourage everyone to do the same.
- perl4ever 6y agoI question whether "I could literally die" is precisely the same thing as "I literally could die". That is, maybe the former means "I could (figuratively) literally die", while the latter means "I literally (not figuratively) could die".
- gwd 6y ago"I could literally die if I eat shrimp." "I could literally die of this disease." Those sound like "this actually happened" to me. "I can't believe I did that in front of all those people -- I literally could die of embarrassment." "I can't believe I did that in front of all those people -- I could literally die of embarrassment". Those both sound like normal "meaningless emphasis" usages of the word 'literally'.
- qubex 6y agoI think we’re getting a bit distracted here by the fact that the frequently used “I literally died [of embarrassment]” is obviously figurative because nobody would be able to use the verb “to die” in the first person in the past tense. When you get to thinks like “She literally died” it becomes murkier. “I could literally die if I ate shrimp” is murkier still. This is one of the many reasons I’d like a firm firewall between ‘figuratively’ and ‘literally’. It seems I’m constantly besieged by the “language evolves, deal with it” crowd, but what they don’t get is that it’s all fine and well when language evolves in such a way to become more precise (perhaps by adding terms that distinguish between things that were previously lumped together, such as ‘dumbphone’ and ‘smartphone’ splitting from ‘cellphone’, itself a portmanteau of ‘cellular’ and ‘telephone’, to distinguish it from a fixed line) or to make meanings quicker to convey in conversation (by abridging the latter to ‘convo’, for example), but the ‘figurative’ versus ‘literal’ debate is very different, because it’s one of those relatively few instances that add ambiguity, making meanings (at least potentially) harder to convey.
- PeterisP 6y agoThe figurative meaning is now considered one of the major senses of the word "literally" because it's so widely used - see https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/literally https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... sense #3, the same for other major dictionaries now.
- gwd 6y agoDictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. You have a vote -- use it wisely.
- PeterisP 6y agoDictionaries are descriptive but conservative - so by the time a change gets included in major dictionaries, it's a sign that the language shift has definitely happened by now and it would be considered futile to try and reverse it because it's already ingrained, it's here to stay.
- theelous3 6y ago> I'd rather say they were using "literally" as a meaningless intensifier Strange how something "meaningless" can simultaneously be an intensifier.