“Real meaning”? What, the other meanings are fake meanings, forgeries, not authenticated by the Word Police?
Your claim is incoherent, and you’re not in a position to criticize other folks for muddled language use.
I assume “Q.E.D.” is short for “I don’t understand the difference between using a word in hyperbolic sense and using a word incorrectly* because I don’t know what it means”. :rolleyes:
*Granted that some sources now attribute two opposite meanings to “literally” but that’s not my point – it only got that way through incorrect usage. I still maintain it’s undesirable usage.
No they don’t.
If used as a meaningless intensifier, I consider it the opposite of the original and proper meaning of “literally”. You may feel otherwise.
Merriam Webster online does have a rather poorly written second definition that could be interpreted that way.
But I don’t think there’s any confusion about actual usage, where it’s used as a metaphorical intensifier, analogous with incredibly.
“Feel” has nothing to do with it. First, intensifiers are not meaningless; if you don’t know how to use them, consult any good writing tutor. Second, that’s not what “opposite” means. An intensifier is no more the opposite of a word meaning “in actuality” than a cat is the opposite of a pineapple. They’re two different things.
Huh–I suppose “virtually” can mean the opposite of “in actuality,” although the relevant meaning is “in effect.”
M-W has a great list of excellent authors who use the word “literally” as an intensifier, from James Joyce to William Makepeace Thackeray. It’s wonderful how much more adroit at using language Little Nemo and wolfpup are than those amateurs!
IRONY WARNING
The way that you are using opposite is reprehensible and ignorant, it diminishes the richness of our language. Opposite has a genuine and distinct meaning.
The opposite of X does not mean anything other than X.
*ALL CLEAR
And when we’re saying your use of the word literally is the opposite of its real meaning, we mean it’s literally the opposite of its real meaning.
Unfortunately, we can’t express that in your version of English.
I think each one of those is a somewhat strained example of related concepts rather than true opposites.
Left - the opposite of “left” in the sense of “leaving” is “arrived”. Something “left behind” is a different usage.
Dust, seed - just a short form of a related concept, like “bone” meaning to remove bones from. Those short forms seem to crop up in house and kitchen work.
Fast - fast relating to speed and “fast” in “color fast” which is the same form as “hold fast” and probably comes from the same root as “fasten” are different words.
Off - the opposite is “on”. “Go off” is the same form as “set off” and is a different usage.
Screen - the apparent contradiction comes from “screen” as a physical object, which can be used to hide things (a Japanese screen in a room) or to project a movie on. Not really opposites.
The supposed alternate meaning of “literally” is a lot like teenagers referring to something as “bad” to mean that it’s very good.
Yes, it’s clear what you intend. You’re incorrect. Nobody uses “literally” to signify “not literally.” To the extent that M-W claims that’s an established meaning, they’re incorrect.
If you think you can show an instance of “literally” being used in the wild to indicate to the audience that the phrase is not literal, please show us.
No - and the fact that you believe this is an indication of the problem.
The real meaning of literally is to express the fact that your statement is not figurative or exaggerated or intensified. So when you use it as a meaningless intensifier, you are using it in its literal opposite meaning.
I see. Let’s just explore that below.
Bolding and underline mine.
No, there is indeed vast confusion here, and it’s all on your part. You fail to see the difference between simple hyperbole and incorrect usage (or at least, confusing and undesirable usage).
You just informed us that “literally” can be used as “a metaphorical intensifier”. Do you understand what “metaphorical” means? According to my handy old Encarta dictionary, it means “figurative language”. According to Merriam-Webster, a “metaphor” is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language”.
So you’re telling us that this new use of “literally” is metaphorical, which dictionaries inform us means “figurative”, which my handy dictionary defines as “not literal”, but apparently I’m “reprehensible and ignorant” for considering the two contradictory usages to be opposites. 
Now, see, that’s what I meant! That’s using “literally” to mean “as it is in literature,” and that’s okay. When you are F. Scott Fucking Fitzgerald, everything you write is literature. Literally !
…is an incoherent concept that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of language.
Setting the snark aside for a moment:
Linguistics (including the evolution of language) is an empirical science. Linguists don’t make value judgements about the way people speak, any more than a physicist gets annoyed at the behavior of photons. To a linguist, the way people speak is data, and the true underlying rules of language are derived empirically from the data. And it’s fascinating to observe and try to understand how language spontaneously evolves.
Then there is prescriptivist peeving about things like literally. It’s perfectly reasonable to express stylistic opinions about current usage. But prescriptivists always seek to invent pseudoscientific objective justifications for their personal opinions, and they lack the insight that a usage that seems awkward and inelegant to them may seem perfectly natural to somebody else who speaks a slightly different dialect. And that may include your own children - the next generation are often the drivers of linguistic evolution. The themes of prescriptivists are always the same: the language is in decay, the erudite must make a stand against ignorance; if we accept a drift or expansion of meaning, we will no longer be able to express ourselves clearly; it said so in Strunk and White. Prescriptivists also commonly misrepresent linguistics (i.e. descriptivist linguistics) as “anything goes”, which is nonsense.
But, ultimately, it’s not just that prescriptivist peeving is based on arrogance and ignorance. It’s just so boring compared to the fascinating process of how language really behaves.
I did say IRONY WARNING to make clear that I was parodying the prescriptivist position, rather than trying to insult you. It might have been nice if you had left that in when you quoted me, but no biggie. Honestly, this has been the most civilized discussion of a prescriptivist peeve that I can remember in years.
But the usage is neither incorrect nor confusing or undesirable. It’s a perfectly reasonable form of hyperbole.
Think about it like this, if you say: "Yo mama so fat that she’s, and this is completely true, classified as a planet." Everyone realizes immediately that you don’t actually believe their mother has been classified as such, that you are claiming that something’s true as a form of hyperbole.
Just like, if you said: “Yo mama so fat that, and this is not a joke, she jumped in the air and got stuck”. Again, nobody thinks you’ve gone insane and lost your ability to tell a joke apart from reality. It’s obvious to everyone that you are using hyperbole. It’s part of the joke. Even if taken, well, literally, it would seem like a contradiction in terms.
Is it “snark” to point out that after all the shrill declarations that the two different uses of “literally” are not opposites, that your own definition establishes them to be exact opposites?
Do you deny that there are stupid people who use language badly and frequently make all manner of stupid mistakes? Is it “fascinating” to observe people write “could of” and “would of”? How does this fascinating practice advance the language? Personally I am fascinated by really good writers practicing their craft. Much less so by random morons evolving the language by writing “I could of went to there party but i dint becuz i had to study stupid grammer.”
What I’ve observed is a number of literary descriptivists on this board defending idiotic usage while actually writing flawlessly themselves. The matter of what constitutes acceptable deviation and how this differs from “anything goes” has never been addressed except in meaningless huffing generalities. I would think that randomly using a word to mean its exact opposite is not exactly conducive to the evolution of coherent language. But I literally could of cared less. The English, she is fascinating.
[ My bold ]
To speak to the matters in bold above:
I, too, love great writing. That’s really something aesthetically quite distinct from a fascination with linguistics. By analogy: I find desert flowers particularly beautiful, I try to spend time in the spring hiking in the Southwest; and I’m a biologist, so of course I’m also fascinated by the process of biological evolution. There’s some overlap in the sense that flowers are a product of evolution; but that’s not what I’m thinking about most of the time when I marvel at them.
Here, when you’re peeving about literally, it’s hard to believe that it has anything to do with a concern for great writing. After all, you’ve been given an example above of use in this sense by Fitzgerald; the Merriam-W online dictionary has citations from Thackeray and James Joyce. It would be easy to find dozens more from great literature. But this carries no weight for you.
Here’s an article by Geoff Pullum, I’ll excerpt a teaser.
Everything Is Correct vs Nothing Is Relevant
And from later in the article
And, sorry but it’s literally impossible to say this in a way that doesn’t sound patronizing, but it’s clear that you’re arguing from a perspective of complete ignorance about linguistics.
You’ve lost this argument due to not knowing what you’re talking about, so I’ll just point out that “shrill” has some misogynist undertones to it, implying that your debate partner is speaking in the sort of high-pitched feminine tones that betrays an emotional argument rather than an intellectual one. By feminizing your opponents’ supposed tone, you dismiss them.
It’s misogynist, and now that you’re aware of it, you shouldn’t use “shrill” in this manner any more.
Edit: FYI, “screech” has the same sort of problem.
Edit 2: THIS is how one criticizes word usage, based on implications and shades of meaning, not based on ignorant misconceptions about nonexistent linguistic authorities.