All of this time, I’ve been criticizing people for using the word “literally” this way.
I’m a little disappointed to find that Ambrose Bierce has led me astray here. All this time I’ve been correcting people for using an expression with an almost impeccable literary pedigree.
Screw Ambrose Bierce. Literally literally means literally.
That’s final.
:dubious:
Literally, you could crawl away and die.
I don’t think it’s likely, and I hope you won’t. But you COULD.
It was Bierce who said it should only be used to mean “really.” But as the article points out, it originally meant “word-for word,” and was applied as an intensifier in the late 18th century. It wasn’t long afterwards that the second meaning turned up, used by people like Cooper and Mark Twain.
Ambrose Bierce is usually a great resource for snarky sarcastic types, though. I guess he just missed on this one.
At first I was inclined to say you should keep fighting the good fight. But then I thought about it some more. If you put “literally” in with other intensifiers like “absolutely,” “really,” “truly,” etc., the argument you’ve been making should apply to those words as well. For example, if you object to, “That literally blew my mind,” you should probably also nix, “That really blew my mind,” or “That truly blew my mind.” Stay safe – use “freakin’” instead.
If you do crawl away and die, will the Grammar Police have to come and investigate your untimely demise?
Sorry. 
Well, of course. An unexplained death is something with which they would never be able truly to live.
I agree–assuming you meant it in the figurative sense.
Daniel
I’m afraid I’d sound like the TV version of a Martin Lawrence movie.
If “literally” loses the meaning “factually” (sort of), what word will replace it? It’s not as though it has many synonyms that aren’t also used as general intensifiers.
The point of the article was that the word lost that meaning within 50 years of acquiring it. It was only in the late 19th century that people began to object to its being used in both contexts. I have noticed that grammar correction really started to take off at the turn of the last century. the author does opint out that other “Janus words” don’t raise hackles the way this one does. I got a kick out of the teaser on the Slate homepage: “Mark Twain used ‘literally’ wrong. You shoud too.”
I would go with “actually,” or “factually,” if I wanted to convey that something I said was factual, though it sounded incredible. I used to use literally, and insist that it could only be understood correctly one way, of course.
Um, duh.
Is anyone honestly unaware that this is an old usage? Do you guys think that us descriptivists who pop up to explain that popular condemnations of usages often have no basis in fact or reason are just pulling stuff out of our asses?
Why all the continual histrionics over this, anyway? It’s maintained two meanings for, as saoirse points out, hundreds of years, and it’s hard for me to imagine any circumstance in which the two meanings could be confused. Why should it lose its denotative meaning just because it’s used as an intensifier as well? Does someone saying “She literally blew up!” actually confuse you? Clearly the word has maintained both usages harmoniously enough; the Chicken Little prescriptivists are either confused or disingenuous if they assume that the use of the word in one circumstance precludes its use in another circumstance - especially when, as in this case, the two circumstances are obviously quite rarely ambiguous.
And the way one word is singled out this way while others are not is nothing new either; it has been quite accurately pointed out that the same condemnation of metaphorical “literally” should apply to “really” as well. The undereducated curmudgeons who prescribe usages also condemn “hopefully” at the beginning of sentences without batting an eye at identical uses of “sadly” or “fortunately”.
The fact that people are outraged by one usage while completely silent about eminently comparable ones demonstrates that these usages never cause real-world confusion or difficulty - elsewise all the words like “sadly” out there would be invoking the prescriptivists’ ire just as much. These prescriptions are arbitrary, and they’re used as shibboleths to gauge the education of speakers - I suspect that it’s their main sociolinguistic function. Arbitrary rules end up clung to, treasured by prescriptivists, and passed down through the generations without a pause to objectively consider whether or not they’re meaningful.
“I am not shitting you!”
Daniel
Exactly. There are plenty of intensifiers to choose from already. But “literally” needs to retain it’s meaning or else we have no way of telling someone that what we are saying isn’t just a figure of speech, but that we mean exactly what we are saying. What other word or phrase can convey that as simply as saying “literally”?
Do you have me on ignore or something?
As I pointed out, the two meanings have coexisted for - as the Slate link demonstrates - hundreds of years. And the original one is still perfectly useful.
Big shocker coming. Cover your eyes if you’re easily spooked.
Many words have more than one meaning.
The fact that this word has survived with dual meanings for so long suggests that it’s pretty stable that way. And why wouldn’t it be? I also pointed out that in the real world it’s hard to find situations where the use of “literally” could be ambiguous. It’s immediately clear from context whether the word is being used literally or not.
But no logical justifications need to be brought forth to counter this non-argument. Because we have plenty of empirical evidence to demonstrate that both meanings coexist just fine, and have done so for quite some time. After all, if the two meanings were somehow incompatible, the literal use of “literally” would have been long forgotten.
Cling to your justifications for prescriptive grammar rules all you like; it doesn’t mean they’re true or meaningful.
Of course that’s how they’re used, except for the fact that all of the information you have acquired all the information you need on grammar by the 12th grade. Obviously, people who retained that information are much more likely to continue their education.
Correcting others serves a variety of functions, from establishing some level of dominance to distracting someone who has presented an argument whose rebuttal does not come immediately to mind to simply informing someone that they have used a word improperly. Usually it only takes a little thought to figure out what the prescribed usage is. I recently corrected a friend (who has a degree in English) because he said “She had dinner with Annie and myself.” Like many people do, he used “myself” improperly because he’d been so terrorized that he would never use “me” in a compound noun phrase.
First of all, DON’T BE A DICK.
Second, I didn’t read down far enough and missed your post. I’m sorry.
Third, I realize that many words have more than one meaning. But I’ll say it again: I’m irritated that this particular word is used as an intensifier as well as it’s alternate meaning. How else is someone to know that I mean something literally, rather than just an exaggeration?
Your example of “She literally blew up” is easy enough to figure out, but there are more subtle uses of the word that may confuse people. Of course, I can’t think of any right now. :shrug:
I’ll cling to my prescriptive grammar rules until you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Yeah, I get that you’re irritated by its use as an intensifier. A lot of people are. The trouble is - as you’ve just demonstrated - there are very few cases where it’s ambiguous at all. Which, like I said above, is also amply demonstrated by the fact that it’s clung to both usages for hundreds of years, and still works fine. It simply is not the case that the more casual use of “literally” creates any more ambiguity than many other words.
Have all the prescriptive grammar rules you like, but don’t pretend that they’re grounded in some sort of logical necessity. If there was a logical problem caused by having two meanings, it would fix itself quickly enough: the new use would never arise, or else a new word (or semantic extension of another word, more likely) would rise to take the place of “literally”. The fact that neither of those things has happened - and that “literally” has stably held both meanings for so long - is very solid evidence that it’s not a confusing matter at all.
“I am still not shitting you!”
Daniel
Point taken. Thank you for explaining it without the dickishness.
[sub]It still bugs me, but whatever (don’t even get me started on that word).[/sub]
And Left Hand of Dorkness, I’ll have to write that one down for future use. Thanks.