3 ms·

I 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) lite

I 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 7y 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 7y ago
I 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.

gwd 7y 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 7y ago

I 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.