…and uses it often; you can hear at least three or four of them in one conversation. It bugs me, make no mistake, but now I get my kicks by watching people flinch/cringe and then quickly rearrange their faces back into a neutral position. My coworker never notices this and continues on, merrily oblivious.
Turning negatives into positives - it’s literally the only way to make it out of cube life with your sanity intact.
Do you actually know what the definition of literally is? Unless she’s using it to mean, like, “triangle” or “motorcycle”, she’s probably actually using it correctly, just in a way that you don’t like.
Doesn’t bother me half as much as people using “figuratively” when that is literally the only meaning that would make sense. If you think your target audience is too stupid to realize your head didn’t literally assplode, and you want to insert the word figuratively there, get yourself a new target audience.
I’ll trade you a co-worker who manages to use the word “arthurized” or “arthurization” at least once a day. I have a mental picture of the person on the other end of the phone turning into Dudley Moore wearing a top hat in a bathtub.
I think s/he means that the ugly muggers rearrange their own faces after flinchcringing.
And your examples would be a bit more on point if “kick” also meant “a mental move having nothing to do with the legs,” and “bugs” meant both “insects” and “non-insects.”
Nonsense. MoonMoon is using those words metaphorically, which is extending their original meanings by applying them in new situations.
That’s not what happened with literally. People just began using it wrongly because they were ignorant of its meaning. And then rather than give up their ignorance, they feel the meaning of the word should be abandoned.
The former is an example of the growth of a language. The latter is an example of the degradation of a language.