Nothing new. From the OED of 1903: "Now often improperly used to indicate that some hypothetical phrase is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense." Fow

Nothing new. From the OED of 1903: "Now often improperly used to indicate that some hypothetical phrase is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense." Fowler's "Modern English Usage" cites examples going back to the mid-19th century. "Irony" is a different beast, since when used in the sense of "cosmic irony" or "irony of fate", it is serendipity's evil twin. By contrast, I have a gut feeling that there is some deep psychological slipping going on with the way people use modifiers such as "literally", "truly" and "really", and that it is inevitable that these words will lose the sharp distinction implied by a truly and literally literal reading.