What "literally" does is turn off the automatic evaluation of (stale) metaphors, thereby drawing attention to the metaphor itself. And although it has been ove

What "literally" does is turn off the automatic evaluation of (stale) metaphors, thereby drawing attention to the metaphor itself. And although it has been overused tremendously, this is a very useful feature to have in a language (just like being able to say "hopefully she'll come" is a useful feature to have). Another way of explaining it is that "literally" should not be understood as "what follows is not a metaphor" but instead as "what follows is not a stale metaphor".