And Ethelred the Unready wasn 't unprepared , he simply wouldn’t listen to advice.
But that’s not an opposite so much as a separate meaning.
I disagree, here. I know “literally” is misused a lot these days, I’m even guilty of it sometimes, but the point is precisely what you think makes no sense : to use an adjective which means “no hyperbole there” in order to *reinforce or underline *the hyperbole being used. Kind of like saying “I’m not making this up” when you obviously are, the dissonance makes the intended meaning all the more interesting/striking. Either that or it introduces a doubt in your listener’s mind for a second, during which time they really wonder whether or not your are, in fact, making this shit up.
IMO at least, that’s the original objective of that construct. It literally sinks like a lead balloon these days, thanks to overuse.
I’ve always heard that “the exception proves the rule” originally came from legalistic verbiage. That is to say, a given law applies to all cases that are not specified in its exceptions and/or the opposite of the law applies in all cases not specifically mentioned by the law. E.g. “parking allowed on Sundays” means you can’t park there on any day but a Sunday, whereas “no Sunday parking” means it’s OK to park there any other day of the week.
Well, we can agree to disagree. I think you may be guilty of thinking the average person is smarter than they are. When Jethro says he ‘done see’d a mouse, litrally bigger than his trailer’, I tend to believe he is ignorant, not some cunning linguist who creates mind twisting witicisms by using a non-hyperbole to reinforce his tired old hyperbole.
The word “factoid” was created for statements that seem like fact, but are in fact false. Repetition will make them accepted; these are things like “Fargo is the capital of North Dakota.”
Nowadays, it means “strange but true” facts. These are by definition true. So while the exact meaning of the term didn’t go to the opposite, it originally described falsities, and now describes truths.
I have always assumed that “dope” in urban usage for “good” came from a reaction to the anti-drug commercial tag line “Why do you think they call it dope?”
Yes, I call it hyperbole creep. I’m sure actual etymologists have a proper term for it. You start with a perfectly good word which means something specific and then people start to use it as hyperbole and at first it has great effect (because people are used to it being a word that is used to mean what it means). Then as people slowly become used to the idea that it is a word that is thrown around carelessly as a term of general emphasis it loses its value as hyperbole, so the hyperbolist has to move on to abuse of some other word, and so it goes.
I fail to see how this makes a jot of sense. You are saying that the theoretical ignorant Jethro is too dumb to know that by saying his exaggeration is true (ie literal) he is adding emphasis. I would guess that the average kid learns to add emphasis by swearing to the truth of their description of something at the age of about five. Actually, my not quite four year old knows this. “It really was, Daddy!”
At the same time, you seem to think Jethro is ethical and smart enough to carefully indicate that his hyperbole is just that, and he indicates this by saying “literally” by which he intends to convey that his statement is figurative.
So he’s a kind of dumbass ignorant genius post-modernist Jethro?
So 40 years in the future, people will be saying “A was listening to the pitch from the used car salesman and I was up to my knees in bullshit. This actually happened, not hyperbolic bullshit, I mean these events actually transpired, literally” will be just an emphatic phrase?
Well this is an interesting which I stumbled across today by accident (i.e. was not trying to find something for this thread but thought it fit when I did find it).
How about a word that means one thing and the opposite thing at the same time?
Still trying to puzzle that one out.
How about Overlook?
One of my son’s friends just had his first name legally changed to “Dude”
(pronounced, if his peers are any indication, “Duuuude…”).
No, he is not a well-dressed dandy.
To briefly revisit the flammable/inflammable discussion… I too never understood why we had two words for one until a few years ago an epiphany struck me out of the blue: the root of inflammable is inflame, which everyone understands as a positive act of burning/stoking a fire.
But since no one pronounces it inflame-able, but instead inflamm-able, people forget what it meant.
In court, “continue” means stop.
The word “suffer” comes to mind. It used to mean “allow”.
“But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 19:14
The Smiths and Napalm Death played with that phrase. Looks like Tears for Fears used both meanings.
I’ve also noticed in the past that no one confuses “ingenious” to mean “not genius.”
I am not RedSwinglineOne, but after reading this thread, it seems to me that you are still missing his point. The ignorance that he is ascribing to Jethro is to the actual meaning of the word “literally”. In other words, he’s saying that Jethro (and many real people) simply does not know what the actual, correct meaning of the word “literally” is. They have heard other people use it for, as you say, emphasis, and simply do the same.
Put a third way, it’s not that “Jethro is too dumb to know that by saying his exaggeration is true (ie literal) he is adding emphasis”, it is that Jethro is too dumb to even know that he is saying that his exaggeration is true.
Put a fourth way, the next time you hear someone say something like, “That mouse was literally as big as a house!”, ask them to define “literally”. I will bet you that the majority of people will have no clue that the word actually means “actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy”.
Probably the most common is “dust”. As a verb, it means both “to add dust (as a noun)” and “to remove dust (as a noun)”.
I don’t know if this counts. But Nimrod in the bible was a great hunter and a feared warrior(jock). Now a nimrod is an idiot(dork) instead. I know an idiot isn’t the opposite of warrior, but taken in the high school context of jock vs dweeb, it is.
Thanks, Roadfood. You [del]literally[/del] took the words right out of my mouth.
I would only add that when used correctly, the word ‘literally’ does not add emphasis. It adds clarity by indicating that the statement, which might tend to be taken figuratively, should be taken word for word.
If you want to add emphasis, there are many words better suited to do so.