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The usage of 'bad apple' which you are describing as incorrect is so widespread now that railing against it is futile. Language sometimes changes in ways we di

The usage of 'bad apple' which you are describing as incorrect is so widespread now that railing against it is futile. Language sometimes changes in ways we disagree with personally. I understand how you feel, I have the same feeling about how the word 'literally' is now defined as 'figuratively' in some dictionaries. Makes me want to tear my hair out... but the people have spoken.

mcphage 3y ago
> I have the same feeling about how the word 'literally' is now defined as 'figuratively' in some dictionaries. Makes me want to tear my hair out... but the people have spoken. Usage of "literally" to mean "figuratively" dates back hundreds of years, with citations by top English writers. If you believed that "literally" meaning "figuratively" was a recent change, you were mistaken.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > Usage of "literally" to mean "figuratively" dates back hundreds of years, with citations by top English writers. Do you have a source for this? This is exactly how bullshit spreads. > If you believed that "literally" meaning "figuratively" was a recent change, you were mistaken. If you believe your authority as an anonymous commenter overrules the previous anonymous commenter, you have mistaken ideas about argumentation.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > Do you have a source for this? This is exactly how bullshit spreads. I did, just not on me—I had to come back with it. ** My daily bread is literally implored I have no barns nor granaries to hoard; — John Dryden, The Hind and The Panther (1687) Every day with me is literally another yesterday for it is exactly the same. — Alexander Pope, Letter to H. Cromwell (March 1708) His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone — Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1839) If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind. — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843) 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. — Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague (1769) I look upon it, Madam, to be one of the luckiest circumstances of my life, that I have this moment the honour of receiving your commands, and the satisfaction of confirming with my tongue, what my eyes perhaps have but too weakly expressed — that I am literally the humblest of your servants. — George Colman and David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage (1766) Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. — James Joyce, The Dead (1914) that he had shared her bedroom which came out in the witness box on oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel... — James Joyce, Ulysses (1922) And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. — Mark Twain, "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer" (1876) All colors made me happy: even gray. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs. — Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962) Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye — Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847)
dragonwriter 3y ago
> I have the same feeling about how the word 'literally' is now defined as 'figuratively' in some dictionaries. This bugs me for the opposite reason it seems to bother you: this definition is wrong descriptively; the figurative use of “literally” doesn’t mean “figuratively”, it means “as if literally (in the usual, literal sense)”, and is applied to another expression used figuratively (that is, it is a mechanism for claiming the proximity of a figurative use to a literal one, not for marking a use as figurative.)

mcphage 3y ago

> I have the same feeling about how the word 'literally' is now defined as 'figuratively' in some dictionaries. Makes me want to tear my hair out... but the people have spoken. Usage of "literally" to mean "figuratively" dates back hundreds of years, with citations by top English writers. If you believed that "literally" meaning "figuratively" was a recent change, you were mistaken.

pessimizer 3y ago
> Usage of "literally" to mean "figuratively" dates back hundreds of years, with citations by top English writers. Do you have a source for this? This is exactly how bullshit spreads. > If you believed that "literally" meaning "figuratively" was a recent change, you were mistaken. If you believe your authority as an anonymous commenter overrules the previous anonymous commenter, you have mistaken ideas about argumentation.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > Do you have a source for this? This is exactly how bullshit spreads. I did, just not on me—I had to come back with it. ** My daily bread is literally implored I have no barns nor granaries to hoard; — John Dryden, The Hind and The Panther (1687) Every day with me is literally another yesterday for it is exactly the same. — Alexander Pope, Letter to H. Cromwell (March 1708) His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone — Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1839) If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind. — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843) 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. — Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague (1769) I look upon it, Madam, to be one of the luckiest circumstances of my life, that I have this moment the honour of receiving your commands, and the satisfaction of confirming with my tongue, what my eyes perhaps have but too weakly expressed — that I am literally the humblest of your servants. — George Colman and David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage (1766) Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. — James Joyce, The Dead (1914) that he had shared her bedroom which came out in the witness box on oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel... — James Joyce, Ulysses (1922) And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. — Mark Twain, "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer" (1876) All colors made me happy: even gray. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs. — Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962) Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye — Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847)

dragonwriter 3y ago

> I have the same feeling about how the word 'literally' is now defined as 'figuratively' in some dictionaries. This bugs me for the opposite reason it seems to bother you: this definition is wrong descriptively; the figurative use of “literally” doesn’t mean “figuratively”, it means “as if literally (in the usual, literal sense)”, and is applied to another expression used figuratively (that is, it is a mechanism for claiming the proximity of a figurative use to a literal one, not for marking a use as figurative.)