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Alright it’s time to get something straight. “Literally” has never been used to mean “figuratively” and I’m tired of people who say it has. If you love descriptivism so much maybe you should stop accidentally trying to change the language from the top down. “But people use it figuratively all the time” yeah man people use “honestly” all the time when they’re fucking lying, that doesnt change the meaning of the word, or it wouldn’t be a fucking lie anymore would it?
“But people say they literally died. That’s not even possible”
They didn’t say the word “literally” to inform you that they are alive. If they used the word “literally” with any kind of innovative meaning there, it’s equivalent to “fucken” or “fr fr” or even just “um” - which are not even close to what “figuratively” means
“Dead” doesn’t only mean entered the goddamn afterlife. It also means shut down, such as when you’re in a state of mental or physical overload. The reason someone says they “literally” shut down in that situation, is to signal that they aren’t flippantly overusing extreme language - no, are saying the shock of embarassment or exasperation they experienced wasnt some minor hiccup that they’re embellishing.
The word “literally” is a word, like any other… It’s not a fucking CIA trigger word that turns you into Amelia Bedelia, hunting for some way to interpret everything like an idiot.
It’s ironic that in an attempt to be maximally descriptive, some actual fucking dictionary writers are spontaneously inventing and prescribing an unnecessary and harmful change in language. Yes harmful! It’s a clarifying word used in the exact same context specifically to clear up confusion about figurative or non-figurative communication. Even if you are illiterate enough to believe this supposed new usage already exists, we have to use this fucking language! I also don’t want you to decide that Red is another way of saying Green and that Left is a valid way to say Right just because you thought you heard it like that. I have to speak this fucking language god damn you! Stop it!
You can’t actually use “figuratively” when you use “literally” though.
“It is figuratively raining cats and dogs” isn’t actually correct. You have to say “it’s raining cats and dogs, figuratively speaking.” “Figuratively” describes the expression. It doesn’t modify it.
“It’s literally raining cats and dogs” does modify the expression, and in an important way. Sometimes people say it’s for adding emphasis, which isn’t wrong, but being more precise about it, “literally” here is saying that the amount of rain currently happening is the precise amount of rain that the expression was invented to describe. Which actually is pretty close to the prescriptively correct usage of “literally” to begin with but as applied to expressions and not words - asserting that the literal meaning of the expression currently applies. I’m not just saying it’s raining cats and dogs, it really is raining cats and dogs right now in the true sense of that expression.
When you say “it’s literally raining cats and dogs” you are speaking figuratively. Figuratively describes the mode of speech. It doesn’t describe the amount of rain.
What’s more, often the use of “literally” isn’t even a figurative mode of speech but actually a metaphorical mode of speech. “I literally died laughing” is not a figurative mode of speech. It is a metaphorical mode of speech.
Many dictionary writers seem to think that when people are using literally they are using a synonym of figuratively that fits the same exact grammatical structure as literally
And yes, this:
but being more precise about it, “literally” here is saying that the amount of rain currently happening is the precise amount of rain that the expression was invented to describe.
Is exactly what I’m getting at.
And yes also you can say something is figurative or metaphorical but the important part here is that if literally means metaphorical or figurative it means non-literal. I chose “figurative” so I wouldn’t have to say “non-literal” and make the whole thing impossible to parse. I’m pretty sure metaphorical language is a subset of figurative language anyway.
The result of this 30 some odd year campaign of misinformation might be that people start saying “wait are you dead ass?” online and getting “I am being literal.” as a response and people get pissed off until the word just cannot be used anymore because it can only confuse people and there’s actually no context that can make the word more useful than just guessing based on the other context clues.
Why do that to a perfectly good word that is sort of important when people are constantly speaking in riddle
I’ve never agreed with someone more strongly in my life. You’re my Lenin.
Grammatic Centralism speeds us to victory over the forces of Capital!
I agree, but no native speaker reads the dictionary to inform their usage of words like these. It’s a natural development. I don’t think the dictionary inclusion causes additional harm. What it does do is warn foreign learners, who do read the dictionary to inform them, that native speakers can use this word in an unexpected way.
Native speakers have never used it like that, so it is pure misinformation. Thanks for coming to my ted talk
The same thing happened to terrible vs terrific. Words used in ambiguous contexts can drift in meaning over time.
No, the same thing didn’t happen to terrible vs terrific. In the case of terrific, people actually inverted the meaning of the word and actually made it ambiguous, and now mostly use the inverted meaning.
People like to say that it happened to literally, but it actually never happened. It has not even SLIGHTLY happened, but people are trying to make it happen - nobody actually uses it that way.
The only context where literally is sometimes used to mean figuratively is during discussions about the word itself and the supposed shift in the meaning of the word
Literally has actually shifted to a filler word, or a placeholder for a curse word, but it has never shifted to mean non-literal.
What actually happened is that people think that if you say the word literally, the sentence can’t have figurative language in it. Which is just wrong. Plenty of people say “oh my god I actually fucking died” or “I honestly fucking died” “oh my god I DIED” or “bro I immediately DIED” and yet for some reason nobody claims that “actually” means “in the realm of fantasy” or “honestly” means “dishonestly” or “I” means “someone other than myself, clearly” or “immediately” means “at the ripe old age of 85”
And I mean dictionaries do not have entries for immediately that say “eventually” with footnotes about the shift in the English language because the editor heard someone claim to be “dead” while also being alive
It’s people misunderstanding what words are and how they work, and loading “literally” with way way too many expectations
Of course words shift. But if I said “left also means right, and that’s okay because the meaning of words shifts” it’s like no, people are not doing that. That hasn’t happened. I also hope it doesn’t get spoken into existence because people will die in car crashes a lot if it somehow actually happens.
Ok now I get you! It has become an intensifier, but it has not acquired new meanings.
Not exactly?
Exactly!
lmao check out ChatPPB’s comment @SerLava@hexbear.net
That fucking people smh
Anarku-primitiv Gramattic
I’m a grammar communist. Make of that what you will
You use every word an equal number of times
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