At least you don’t have a boss who says “six o’ one, two dozen of another.”
“Figuratively”, duh.
When people use literally meaning figuratively I just hear it as any other random crutch word that people throw in to their speech. Like actually, honestly or fucking.
So “My head literally exploded,” becomes “My head fucking exploded.”
Similarly:
My legs fucking turned to jelly.
He was fucking jumping out of his skin.
This project will be fucking ground breaking.
Well that is how they are using it. They don’t use it as a stand in for “figuratively” they are using it as an intensifier, just like you are using “fucking” above.
This is not an objection that withstands even cursory examination. Many common words are their own antonym and no one is bothered by it. But this is irrelevant because the two meanings of literally are not opposing.
I suggest penultimately.
Not entirely. You can’t use literally like an intensifier on its own. “I am fucking happy,” is fine. Not so, “I am literally happy.” However, “I am so happy I could literally burst,” is a winner.
The use of literally implies the association with the following trite phrase which is commonly some weak, overused metaphor - bursting bodies, exploding heads, lifting roofs, the best thing, the worst thing etc. When it is not something 100% predictable the listener is left to decipher whether the speaker knows what literal means and then whether they have used it in the literal sense or the fucking sense…
Baseline assumption: language is used to communicate ideas.
Followup: The more precisely language communicates ideas, the better its usage.
(Side-note: if one side has a stick up their ass about a particular usage, that can impede communication; but the best thing to do is to remove the stick).
I have never, not once, encountered a use of “literally” that was confusing. If I ever do, I plan to reread or to ask a follow-up question, as I do every day when I encounter confusing language.
The problem with “literally” as an intensifier for metaphors is entirely a problem with pedantic English speakers who cling to an incorrect understanding of linguistics as a substitute for rich communicative abilities of their own. The implication that they know more about English than Dickens literally bugs the Dickens out of me.
“He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I think I’ve found my signature.
I don’t understand the “whores” thing.
What do you think the purpose of a dictionary is? Do you think the editors are supposed to be peeving prescriptivists who use the dictionary to set rules for what words should mean?
The English language was quite different 1000 years ago, 500 years ago, 100 years ago. How do you imagine the change came about? By committee?
A good friend helps me with converting metric liquid volumes. He literally my liter ally.
Exactly. The point if a dictionary is that, if someone uses a word you don’t understand, you have a resource you can look it up in so you can understand what they were trying to say. If they leave out definitions because they aren’t “correct,” then they’re sabotaging the whole point of compiling a dictionary in the first place. If “irregardless” isn’t in the dictionary because it’s not a “real” word, and someone hears it used and thinks, “What does that word mean?” where can they go for an answer?
A history of the decline of the English language:
It’s quite astonishing that we can still understand each other.
I don’t think “people […] were ignorant of its meaning.” It’s just hyperbole.
That was going to be my line, curse you! 
I was going to suggest that this could lead to yet another tedious debate about who should be the arbiter of when incorrect usage is deemed to be correct, and just what percentage of the population needs to be wrong before wrong is considered right. But I could care less. Literally.
I agree. And better communication is achieved in several ways. In mundane daily conversation it’s achieved by systematic agreed-upon rules of meaning and grammatical structure that promote clarity and minimize ambiguity. In creative writing it can be achieved by novel constructions that powerfully evoke images or emotions and may bend or break conventional rules. But in the hands of a skilled craftsman, such usage enhances communication and improves the language. It is not to be confused with asinine mistakes that degrade the language, obscure intended meaning, and introduce ambiguities.
“I literally could care less” is a lovely example of a construction in which multiple potential meanings are fighting each other in a hopeless mess of ambiguity. What the hell does it mean? We might be accustomed to glossing over the “could care less” construction and assuming it to mean “couldn’t care less”, but what does it mean to put “literally” in front of it? Does it mean “I really, really couldn’t care less”, or is the word being used correctly, so that you should interpret the phrase literally to mean “I care a certain amount, and it would be possible for me to care less”? Who the hell knows?
The richness of language is not enhanced by ignorantly using a word to mean its opposite. Regardless of what Dickens may or may not have done, if a good writer needs an emphatic adverb he should find one that conveys information and not one that merely confuses.
You could certainly make a case for that being acceptable usage, inasmuch as “glow” doesn’t refer exclusively to the emission of light but can also refer to rosiness of complexion or a sense of happiness or well-being, as in “the warm glow of satisfaction”. To me this usage implies that this quality was, literally, evident in the person described.
The problem with “literally” is that you gain nothing by using it non-literally.
“My head literally exploded,” means the exact same thing as “My head exploded,” and since we know your head didn’t explode, or we wouldn’t be talking to you, as hypebole, “literally” fails, and as metaphor, “My head exploded,” without the additional word to bog it down is actually stronger. As a figurative word, “literally” is very weak.
However, using it when you need it to mean its original meaning, it’s a very strong word:
You mean that “glow” can be used figuratively? Yeah, I know.
Look, every single word can be used figuratively. The fact that “literal” happens to be the antonym of “figurative” doesn’t magically make it exempt.
Here’s the reality with any kind of prescriptivist peeving like this:
If you want to say, as a subjective stylistic matter, that you find it more elegant to restrict “literally” to its earlier/narrower meaning - then fine, maybe you can even convince an editor or two to add the proscription to their style guide.
But if you’re trying to make some pseudoscientific argument that it’s objectively more precise/elegant/logical if we do it your way, then that’s just bollocks. Nobody cares about the theory that you pulled out of your backside, and in particular the language doesn’t care. Language evolves by spontaneous change in consensus usage, not by debate or ideology.
Every prescriptivist peever throughout history thinks that the dialect of their particular time and place is the epitome of precision and elegance that must be preserved from decay by the diligence of the erudite. Again, bollocks. Linguistics and language evolution seems to be just like biological evolution - few people understand how it works, and the most ignorant have the loudest opinions.
If this is even remotely true, it happened a long time ago, and that ship has sailed. It’s not like the original meaning of ‘literally’ has been abandoned, you can still use it that way perfectly well.