I have a coworker who uses 'literally' incorrectly

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

Sounds like you’re still miffed about your Steven Pinker debacle in GQ. Maybe you should bring up Noam Chomsky next because I have a similar story to tell you there, too. (FTR, both are academics of stellar achievement, in case anyone might misinterpret my point.)

But anyway, one definition of “shrill” from the Cambridge dictionary:
Disapproving: used to describe a way of arguing or criticizing that seems too forceful: He launched a shrill attack on the prime minister.

Sounds just about as misogynistic as I am. :rolleyes: But thanks for the vocabulary lesson, anyway.

Specifics? Cite?

82

I am literally non-plussed.

Two words becoming the exact opposite of their original definition.
How can I live in a world like this?

83

I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. I vaguely recall somebody who didn’t know anything at all about linguistics arguing with me in GQ a few years ago–was that you?

84

Or to insert a bone! “After my wife finished boning the chicken for dinner, we retired to the bedroom, where I boned her.”

But seriously, you’ve entirely failed to define any functional difference between any of these terms, and the two uses of “literally” being discussed in this thread. Your position here, as well as Little Nemo can be summed up, in absolute and total accuracy, as, “I don’t like it, therefore it is wrong.”

85

“Actually”.

You’re welcome. Problem solved. :smiley:

(yeesh…I never knew there was so much passion. Me? I roll my eyes at the people who use literally wrong, and I add a mental note, right next to the scribble “…probably thinks Trump ‘tells it like it is’…”)

86

Oh, yes, it was the merry me. Remember now? I think that was when you decided to stop responding to me, which is kind of unfortunate, as I enjoy a good debate.

Not at all. No one in this thread, and certainly not I in any other, has ever objected to the use of metaphors or allegories. As literary devices, I love them! The objection is to the simple incorrect use of a term that confusingly means its exact opposite, an event that occurs because the speaker or writer is a dumbass who doesn’t understand that simple fact. These sorts of things might inject the language with peculiar new usages if they become widespread, but the evolution of language should be efficacious. Stupidities have to be culled in order to make advancements, just like in nature. The process will never be perfect in either domain, but shouldn’t we strive as best we can, where we can?

87

Again, no, “literal” in this situation is used as a form of hyperbole. Nobody uses it to mean “metaphorically” because, well, it’s not like most people go around using “metaphorically” in regular conversation to begin with.

Really? Now, “literally” is not that complex a word. You don’t need a Mensa IQ to get it. In all honesty, it seems to me that some of you just like the feeling of superiority believing otherwise gives you.

88

Stop trying to make peeving happen.

89

It’s a technical term.

Does prescriptivist pontification work better for you? There must be alliteration.

90

Our advocate of literary libertarianism, Riemann, apparently feels that the incorrect use of “literal” is justified absolutely on the grounds of it being a metaphor. Which means that it’s an awesome evolution of language to have “literal” accepted as also simultaneously meaning “not literal”. It’s all about clarity of communication, you see?

No, it’s not that complex a word at all. Yet it keeps getting misused. I heard somewhere that some substantial proportion of the population is below average intelligence – or perhaps more meaningfully, below the median IQ. Any idea what percentage that might be? I’d guess it might be almost half! :smiley:

And these are the folks who are determining the future of the English language. The very same geniuses that you see posting on Facebook and Twitter and all over the Interwebs. I should of known.

91

No, my position is fundamentally that “It makes no sense, and it’s confusing, and therefore it’s wrong”. If one values language as a means of communication, the avoidance of such problematic constructs is surely a laudable principle.

92

The world can go fuck itself.

But not literally.

Noted.

93

Again, you have decided that, since the word “literal” means “not metaphorical”, “literal” cannot be used metaphorically. “Literal” can be used figuratively exactly the same as “Gigantic”, “Wicked” or “Awesome”. No logical reason why it shouldn’t be, or at least why you shouldn’t be as equally livid about any other word used figuratively.

It’s like you getting angry at people pronouncing the word “Mute”.

It doesn’t. You deciding something doesn’t just make it true.

Yes. And yet “literal” is still a simple enough concept that even the dumbest of the dumb can still grasp it.

94

Nope–Killing Time was the one I remembered vaguely from that thread. But your idea that that was a debacle for me? Okey dokey.

95

Your position is wrong, because the intensifier use of “literally” is no more confusing than the intensifier use of “really,” “truly,” or “incredibly.” And when you claim it confuses you, I don’t believe you.

Nobody has offered an instance in which the use of the word “literally” in the real world gave rise to any confusion at all.

96

Again, Q.E.D.
You’re hitting all the prescriptivist peever talking points, wolfpup.

Your position could fairly be described at linguistic fascism, because you perist in a view that this use of literally is objectively “wrong”, “stupid”, and “ignorant”. The opposite of that kind of position is not libertarianiasm, it is not “anything goes”.

My personal opinion is that, stylistically, I actually dislike the use of literally in the “metaphorical” sense, although I don’t feel particularly strongly about it. The difference between you and me is that I realize that this view is just a stylistic opinion, with about as much objective validity as whether I prefer a blue or a red tie.

The only objective truth about the nature of language comes from dispassionate empirical analysis of the data. This is linguistics, a science.

Let’s go back to the analogy of biological evolution for a moment. Under this analogy, the science of evolutionary biology is analogous to the science of linguistics. The aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of flowers is analogous to the appreciation of great literature.

As scientists, we can understand the process of evolution, and derive principles and laws about how life changes over time from the empirical data. At the same time, we can admire the beauty of flowers, and express subjective opinions that, say, the Mariposa Lily is a particularly beautiful flower.

By analogy, as linguists, we study the science of language empirically, without making value judgements about the way people speak, in order to derive principles by which language operates and evolves over time. At the same time, we can admire the beauty of great writing, and make subjective value judgements that (say) Shakespeare is particularly eloquent and elegant writer.

Now, under this analogy, here’s what you’re doing:

Your views here amount to no more than the equivalent of expressing an opinion about which flower is more beautiful. Except that you’re expressing your subjective aesthetic opinion in a fascistic negative way, like this:

The ragweed is an objectively ugly flower because that shade of yellow clashes with the color of the sky, and anyone who disagrees with me is an ignorant fool. We need to remove all ragweeds from the countryside for the sake of the future evolution of plant life.

In other words, you are mispresenting your subjective aesthetic views as objective truth with pseudoscientific justification, and condemning anyone who disagrees; and betraying a woeful ignorance of the fact that any aesthetic views on language have no bearing whatsoever on the underlying spontaneous evolutionary process of language.

97

I know it’s late to be jumping in here, but whenever this argument occurs, I just see people talking past each other.

Language not made up of objective facts; it’s a tool. As a tool, it has many uses: besides the obvious practical use of communicating information, it also serves self-expression and marks tribal and self identity. In all these ways, it is very much like fashion, which has both practical and expressive functions and is full of rules and conventions.

If someone violates the conventions of fashion by, say wearing a boot on their head, we may disapprove or say such a person is being ridiculous, but we don’t accuse them of being factually wrong.

In grammar, as in fashion, the only true errors are the things done accidentally that would be corrected if the person doing them simply noticed. The fact that some people choose to use footwear as headgear or underwear as outerwear doesn’t mean that I’m being “correct” if I leave my fly down. But even then, it’s a mistake, it’s not “incorrect.”

When you treat deliberate choices as objectively incorrect errors, you sound no different than the curmudgeons who complain that kids today don’t know how to use a belt. You don’t have to like sagging pants, shoes on heads, or the figurative use of literally, but you’re the one making objectively incorrect statements of fact when you say they simply being “wrong.”

To reiterate, even when a fashion designer and an artist put a shoe on someone’s head you don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to agree with every word choice made by Shakespeare or Fitzgerald. That’s the part prescriptivists sometimes miss. We’ve all seen bad writing with inelegant constructions. We’ve mostly all mourned the functional loss of niggardly, even if we never actually used it before anyway. I’ve thought about starting a Pit thread to object to the “misuse” of retcon in comic book discussions. Middle-managers who pepper their emails with words like aperture and transition, like men who wear pleated pants, may not be technically misusing things, but they aren’t doing themselves any favors, either.

I think the problem is that we learn the “rules” of grammar at school, and those of us who paid attention notice someone breaking the rules, and we want to judge that person for not learning properly, just like we would judge someone who doesn’t that the earth revolves around the sun or that Columbus discovered America and proved the earth is round. But as with the Columbus example, those of us who kept paying attention after we left school have since learned that our teachers were wrong about a few things, and now we’re the ones judging you. But we shouldn’t be, because when it comes to language, all we have are opinions and preferences, not facts.

But seriously, don’t wear pleated pants.

98

Even–and this is important!–even if Shakespeare did.

Also, I meant to type “That’s the part descriptivists sometimes miss,” in my antepenultimate paragraph.

99

I’m not sure I’d go around bragging about that exchange, if I were you.

That doesn’t address my criticism, it just reiterates it. You’ve said that using words like “incredible” is hyperbole, while “literally” is just stupid, but you haven’t explained why you’re creating that distinction. Why isn’t using “incredible” stupid? Why isn’t using “literally” hyperbole? What’s the difference between the two terms, other than you’re own, subjective aesthetic preferences?

100

Except that its demonstrably none of those things. If someone says, My head literally exploded," are you unsure if their cranium actually detonated? No, it’s plainly obvious that they’re merely using it as an intensifier, and that their head is, in fact, intact.

Or, if someone says, “I literally don’t have a cent to my name.” Does it matter if they do not factually own a single penny? No, of course not. The clearly articulated point is that they’re super broke. Whether or not they’ve combed through their couch cushions for loose change and come up empty isn’t necessary information for understanding the intent behind the statement. The statement is neither confusing or nonsensical, despite a somewhat ambiguous use of the word “literally.”

So, having disposed of your objections to the term on grounds of sense, and having disposed of your objection on the grounds of confusion, what are we left with? You don’t like it, therefore it’s “wrong.”

Consider me unimpressed by that argument.