Or how about post #21:
My problem is with the specific usage of literally to mean figuratively (or literally literally as the old meaning still is used). So saying “I literally fell off my chair” has no more information than “I fell off my chair” as now literally could mean my butt literally fell off the chair and landed on the floor, or it could mean I was very surprised and figuratively fell of my chair.
Or how about John McWhorter’s example of how there has never been any ambiguity, which I think I may have mentioned before – I found it in my files as something I wrote but may nor may have posted:
Perhaps most damning of all, he claims that there is no way, no how, that the figurative use of “literally” could ever lead to ambiguity, and then, in an over-eager attempt to show how long it’s been used to mean its exact opposite, he cites this line, from David Hume writing a history of England in 1806: “He had the singular fate of dying literally of hunger”.
Well, guess what, folks? I have absolutely no idea from this whether the referenced individual actually died of starvation, or just had constant unfulfilled cravings for mutton chops. There is no way to disambiguate that statement. With this spectacularly ill-chosen example, McWhorter has thoroughly defeated his own argument. But there’s more to come! He plows on: he also gleefully informs us that Hume uses this statement despite the fact that “there are no letters via which to starve” – that is, that there is no room here for what he has called a “by the letter”, or genuinely literal, interpretation. He claims that it cannot, so to speak, be literally literal (note how incredibly non-confusing this all is!) No? Of course it can! I’m pretty sure that in the poverty and largely non-existent social services of 19th century England, it’s quite plausible that some people did literally die of hunger.
As it turns out, this was the case here. Hume was referring to the dramatist and poet Thomas Otway, and was using “literally” in the correct sense. This is the full context from Hume’s history: “Otway, though a professed royalist, could not even procure bread by his writings; and he had the singular fate of dying literally from hunger. These incidents throw a great stain on the memory of Charles, who had discernment, loved genius, was liberal of money, but attained not the praise of true generosity”.
No offense to John McWhorter – I’m sure he’s a fine linguist, and it’s definitely an enjoyable book by a competent writer and observer of language. I just happen to disagree with a few parts of it, and most emphatically with the nonsense justifications for misuses of “literally”.
Here is some more stuff that I wrote a long time ago about McWhorter’s apologia for misuses of “literally”:
His arguments are specious, and he completely overlooks the glaringly obvious misconceptions that have led to its mistaken use as an intensifier. It’s a lot like Steven Pinker’s elaborately contrived explanation for “could care less” as allegedly being a clever form of sarcasm instead of a mundane case of mishearing. Both of these guys seem to have cast aside the reliable guidance of Occam’s Razor in favor of fantastical theories of widespread linguistic genius. McWhorter, for instance, cites allegedly parallel examples like “fast” that are not parallel at all – see the etymology below*. One can see the evolution of “fast” from Old English through Middle English and then to its modern adjectival form to mean different things that are in fact related, though not obviously so. But it’s not as if “fast” has ever meant “slow”.
Of course words change in meaning over time; no one has ever tried to claim otherwise. But his analogy is bunk. Most so-called contronyms in English are words that might be alleged to have somewhat opposing meanings in certain contexts, but closer examination usually reveals these to be rather contrived superficial arguments because either those words are not direct opposites and merely share a common root, or else they denote something so commonplace that the usual negating prefix has been omitted (when a cook says she is going to “bone” a chicken instead of “debone”, few would be under the impression that she is engaged in the veterinary activity of crafting a skeleton for a boneless chicken, which usage is in a different realm entirely from the fiasco of “literally”).
A lot of these alleged contronyms are so contrived that it’s almost like a linguistic game. Hey, the word “seized” can mean that authorities take certain goods away from you, yet when the brake caliper on your car is “seized”, you can’t make it go away! They mean opposite things, just like “literally”! No, they don’t. It’s just a word that means several different conceptually related things due to a common etymology.
McWhorter has more. He cites “practically” which he has somehow, inexplicably, convinced himself has come to mean the opposite of its original meaning. It most assuredly has not. It has always meant “in a practical sense” and hence, by extension, has also come to mean “close to” or “almost”. His “practically” example is, if anything, even more wrong than the “fast” argument. “I practically died of thirst” is probably hyperbole (one hopes). “I literally died of thirst” is just stupid.
* - etymology of “fast”: Old English fæst ‘firmly fixed, steadfast’ and fæste ‘firmly’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch vast and German fest ‘firm, solid’ and fast ‘almost’. In Middle English the adverb developed the senses ‘strongly, vigorously’ (compare with run hard), and ‘close, immediate’ (just surviving in the archaic fast by; compare with hard by, both meaning “very near”), hence ‘closely, immediately’ and ‘quickly’; the idea of rapid movement was then reflected in adjectival use.
– from the Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford University Press
And it’s one that has an unfortunate tendency to bleed over and pollute more formal contexts with potentially confusing ambiguity.