I have a coworker who uses 'literally' incorrectly

[Riemann]

Alan, while I agree with some of what you said, once agin -

@Riemann

Prescriptivists also commonly misrepresent linguistics (i.e. descriptivist linguistics) as “anything goes”, which is nonsense.

@Alan_Smithee

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 descriptivists sometimes miss.

This is the same tedious straw man parody of linguistics (i.e. descriptivism).

We have:

(1) Linguistics, which is by definition 100% descriptivist, because it’s science. No value judgements here. The rules of language, the way that it operates and how it evolves, derive empirically from the data, from how people actually speak.

(2) Aesthetics, i.e. opinions about what makes great writing syle, literary criticism.

ALL linguists recognize and engage in both (1) and (2). Linguists do not deny or decry the validity of stylistic opinions, literary critisim and aesthetics, i.e. (2). They just KNOW THE DIFFERENCE between (1) and (2).

[Ludovic]

@Miller

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.

In many contexts it would be unclear to me. If we were talking about buying something that cost less than a dollar and they said that, I would take it to mean that it would be completely impossible for them to make said purchase with their present funds, not that they were “super broke” but could scrounge up some money if it were extremely important.

The “penny” is irrelevant since a cent is a unit of currency rather than a coin, so if they had a dollar then they would have 100 cents to their name. However, if they did use the more common phrase “I [literally] don’t have a penny / dime to my name”, then I would still take the “literally” part literally if we were discussing very small amounts of money, but I would take the “penny” to mean 1 cent and “dime” to mean 10 cents, since that is a common metonym, and, unlike the word “literally”, is not very often confusing because we seldom discuss owning an actual penny or dime.

[wolfpup]

@Miller

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.

Except that you haven’t disposed of it. What’s the difference between “I don’t have a cent to my name” and “I literally don’t have a cent to my name”? Is the latter an attempt to be more emphatic, or is it supposed to be more precise? There is at least some element of ambiguity. Consider these examples:

I am broke.
A somewhat weak, relatively unexpressive statement about one’s finances.

I am incredibly broke.
A stronger statement about the extreme nature of one’s poverty.

I am literally broke.
A “WTF?” type of statement that may or may not be meant to denote an actual state of bankruptcy. We don’t know, because the misuse of the word “literally” has undermined the vocabulary and robbed the language of one of its tools.

That’s fundamentally the difference between “incredibly” and “literally”. Sure, if someone says that their head “literally exploded”, I just think, ah, someone who doesn’t know what “literally” means. But in other cases the linguistic misfortune of the word’s ambiguous usage actually does create ambiguity.

[wolfpup]

@Riemann

We have:

(1) Linguistics, which is by definition 100% descriptivist, because it’s science. No value judgements here. The rules of language, the way that it operates and how it evolves, derive empirically from the data, from how people actually speak.

(2) Aesthetics, i.e. opinions about what makes great writing syle, literary criticism.

If you’re going to define linguistics that narrowly, then you’ve missed a big piece of what constitutes language. Language has a lexicon and an extensive set of rules governing grammar, morphology, and syntax for its written form and phonetics for the spoken form. Without a common understanding of the lexicon and rules of language we’d never be able to communicate.

To say that the rules “derive empirically from the data” glosses over some critically important facts: that at any given point in time language is a specific body of knowledge and skills that can and should be taught, and that this provides reasonably objective standards by which the practice of language and the effectiveness with which we communicate can be judged. Linguistics may be descriptivist, but the body of knowledge that is language is prescriptivist pretty much by definition, or we’d still be communicating by making grunting sounds.

[Alan_Smithee]

@Riemann

Alan, while I agree with some of what you said, once agin -

This is the same tedious straw man parody of linguistics (i.e. descriptivism).

We have:

(1) Linguistics, which is by definition 100% descriptivist, because it’s science. No value judgements here. The rules of language, the way that it operates and how it evolves, derive empirically from the data, from how people actually speak.

(2) Aesthetics, i.e. opinions about what makes great writing syle, literary criticism.

ALL linguists recognize and engage in both (1) and (2). Linguists do not deny or decry the validity of stylistic opinions, literary critisim and aesthetics, i.e. (2). They just KNOW THE DIFFERENCE between (1) and (2).

Linguistics is not just another name for descriptivism, though. Linguistics is descriptive, but you can be a descriptive without being a linguist or knowing anything about linguistics. (And there is a movement for limited forms of prescriptivism in some social sciences like economics. One could imagine something similar in linguistics, studying empirically which language forms promote clarity or increase perceived competence or achieve whatever goal a speaker might have.)

There are some descriptivists who treat aesthetic judgments about language as nonsensical or naive. It’s not entirely a straw man. I know because I used to have that tendency myself.

[Little_Nemo]

@Miller

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.

Heads rarely explode. Which is why you can say something like “his head exploded” and people will understand that you’re using a metaphor to communicate that the person in question lost his temper.

But, as President Kennedy demonstrated in 1963, sometimes heads do explode. And we use to be able to communicate this fact. When we said “his head literally exploded” people understood that we were explicitly not using a metaphor - the person we are discussing lost his life not his temper.

I’m not a prescriptivist. I don’t insist that people only use words like “explode” in cases where something blew up. I’m fine with using “explode” as a metaphor; it’s the kind of thing that expands a language.

But we had a word that indicated that we were putting metaphors aside for the moment because sometimes we want to speak non-metaphorically. I object - and I will continue to object - to the people who take that word and try to turn it into a meaningless figure of speech that serves no purpose except to intensify a metaphor.

[wolfpup]

@Little_Nemo

… But we had a word that indicated that we were putting metaphors aside for the moment because sometimes we want to speak non-metaphorically. I object - and I will continue to object - to the people who take that word and try to turn it into a meaningless figure of speech that serves no purpose except to intensify a metaphor.

Exactly. Precisely my point. And I also object to the view that no one may dare criticize the sacrosanct evolution of language, and that anyone who does so is deemed by Riemann to be a “prescriptivist peever” who “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.”

Nonsense. The dialect of my particular time and place is an illogical confusing mess, and a large part of how it got that way is that people make mistakes and the mistakes become entrenched. The beneficent evolution of language due to creative brilliance is relatively rare; Shakespeare gave us many wonderful turns of phrase, but there haven’t been many like him around, either then or now. I’m not a strict prescriptivist, either. I often come across unusual constructions when reading P.G. Wodehouse that could be judged technically incorrect, and instead of getting my shorts in a knot over it I enjoy them like a fine wine, because*** the man knows what he’s doing***. They work, sometimes as effective and humorous expressions of dialect, sometimes just as amusing wordplay.

But I will continue to rail against idiots making mistakes. The two things are not at all the same, and it’s not inconsistent to have a flexible and creative attitude to the use of language while condemning abuses stemming from ignorance.

[Riemann]

@Riemann

…Linguistics, which is by definition 100% descriptivist, because it’s science. No value judgements here. The rules of language, the way that it operates and how it evolves, derive empirically from the data, from how people actually speak…

@wolfpup

If you’re going to define linguistics that narrowly, then you’ve missed a big piece of what constitutes language. Language has a lexicon and an extensive set of rules governing grammar, morphology, and syntax for its written form and phonetics for the spoken form…

[ My bold ]
How on earth do you infer that I’m excluding those things? You do understand that a “rule” in language is something that can be derived empirically, based on the evidence of the way people actually speak, right?

@wolfpup

…And I also object to the view that no one may dare criticize the sacrosanct evolution of language…

This is a category error. You can criticize the process of the evolution of language as much as you like. I might call you foolish for doing so, but that’s not because I’m worried that you might break it. It’s just that criticizing it makes about as much sense as criticizing the theory of gravitation. Language evolves spontaneously, and our (imperfect) understanding of it is based on empirical data. It goes the way it goes, and whatever you do or say is not going to change it - this is one of your fundamental misconceptions.

@wolfpup

…at any given point in time language is a specific body of knowledge and skills that can and should be taught, and that this provides reasonably objective standards by which the practice of language and the effectiveness with which we communicate can be judged. Linguistics may be descriptivist, but the body of knowledge that is language is prescriptivist pretty much by definition, or we’d still be communicating by making grunting sounds.

[ my bold ]

I’d suggest a thought experiment of imagining that you’re living in Shakespeare’s time, around 400 years ago, when the English language was quite different. How do you think the gradual changes between then and now came about?

At the moment, your knowledge of linguistics - the structure and rules of language, how children acquire it, and how it evolves over time - is so badly flawed that I don’t know where to begin. The level of conversation here is honestly like discussing biological evolution with a creationist.

You mentioned Steven Pinker. His “Language Instinct” is excellent, and speaks to much of this. Short of reproducing the book in its entirety, I don’t think I can contribute much more that will be of use here.

[Ludovic]

@Riemann

I’d suggest a thought experiment of imagining that you’re living in Shakespeare’s time, around 400 years ago, when the English language was quite different.

It was?

[Riemann]

One of the most apposite chapter’s of Pinker’s book seems to be online in numerous places, so I’ll post a link to it. I’m somewhat concerned about copyright, but it seems to have been posted in many places in pdf form by educational institutions, so perhaps he may have approved its distribution. And I would hope that his eloquence in this chapter would encourage people to go out and buy the whole book.

Steven Pinker - The Language Instinct - Chapter 12 The Langauge Mavens

[Go_Arachnid_Laser_1]

@Little_Nemo

But we had a word that indicated that we were putting metaphors aside for the moment because sometimes we want to speak non-metaphorically. I object - and I will continue to object - to the people who take that word and try to turn it into a meaningless figure of speech that serves no purpose except to intensify a metaphor.

But you could say the same of- well- literally any intensifier. “Blindingly” was supposed to mean that something caused blindness. hardly anything “awesome” is worthy of awe. And if you are against every single intensifier, that’s fine. That’s at least a coherent posture.

But I posit that deciding that the line not to be crossed is a meta figure like “literal”, just because it’s dealing with the same concept that it’s using, well, that’s not coherent. Because there is no technical difference between this intensifier and any other. Both bastardize the language exactly the same, both require of context to tell apart from their, wait for it, literal counterparts.

But there’s no more logic behind wanting to stop the use of “literal” in a figurative sense" than wanting people to stop using “to name” as a verb.

[Riemann]

As for the meaning of the disputed use of literally: I’ve been mulling this over, since it’s not trivial to analyze what’s going on.

Some notation for clarity:
literally(1) for the meaning in “He took her comments literally”
literally(2) for the meaning in “That is literally the meanest thing anyone has ever said”

On the one hand, wolfpup’s tome of argumentation notwithstanding, it’s quite evident that
literally(2) is not opposite in meaning to literally(1). It is used to add emphasis, but it’s not a straightforward intensifier, and it’s used mostly with metaphors. So what’s going on?

Consider a typical example:

It was as though she glowed.
In a simile, the comparison is explicit.

She glowed.
A metaphor makes a superficially false statement. Perhaps by conjuring the thought of somebody literally(1) glowing, the imagery is rendered more powerful. But, of course, it’s not really intended to deceive, the “as though” of the simile is implicit and very obvious.

She literally(2) glowed.
What’s going on here? It seems to me that this is just using the same “trick” of a metaphor, just taken up one level. Thus:

Simile = Here’s some imagery
Metaphor = This imagery is not a simile, it’s really happening! (but not really)
Literally(2)+Metaphor = This imagery is not even a metaphor it’s really happening! (but not really)

A metaphor, is a “lie” to intensify the imagery. Adding literally(2)+metaphor just takes the “lie” to the next level, it doubles down precisely because it uses the very word that we would normally use to try to discern whether a metaphor is really a lie. It’s a meta-metaphor.

Stylistically, is this a bad thing?

Well, metaphors are full of fantastic lies, and nobody wants to ban them! Literally(1) used to be the “safe word”, so that when getting a little bit experimental with metaphors, we always knew that we could make them stop if we became uncomfortable.

Will this result in hundreds of people being thrown in swimming pools because they are literally glowing? I doubt it.

[Riemann]

@Alan_Smithee

Linguistics is not just another name for descriptivism, though. Linguistics is descriptive, but you can be a descriptive without being a linguist or knowing anything about linguistics…

Descriptivism means empiricism, not just “being descriptive” in general terms. I think the coinage was to precisely to emphasize that the empirical evidence-based science of linguistics is a world apart from prescriptivism (where by prescriptivism I don’t just mean stylistic opinions, I mean the fallacy that language requires externally imposed rules).

@Alan_Smithee

…(And there is a movement for limited forms of prescriptivism in some social sciences like economics. One could imagine something similar in linguistics, studying empirically which language forms promote clarity or increase perceived competence or achieve whatever goal a speaker might have.)…

[My bold]

You are describing (in bold) a perfectly scientific approach to seeking knowledge from empirical data. By definition, that’s not prescriptivism.

All linguistics is by definition descriptivist=empirical, as is all of science.
Prescriptivism seeks to impose externally-derived rules, that’s not part of any science.
They are mutually exclusive.

[Little_Nemo]

@Go_Arachnid_Laser

But you could say the same of- well- literally any intensifier. “Blindingly” was supposed to mean that something caused blindness. hardly anything “awesome” is worthy of awe. And if you are against every single intensifier, that’s fine. That’s at least a coherent posture.

But I posit that deciding that the line not to be crossed is a meta figure like “literal”, just because it’s dealing with the same concept that it’s using, well, that’s not coherent. Because there is no technical difference between this intensifier and any other. Both bastardize the language exactly the same, both require of context to tell apart from their, wait for it, literal counterparts.

But there’s no more logic behind wanting to stop the use of “literal” in a figurative sense" than wanting people to stop using “to name” as a verb.

Not at all. The special case of literal is in its meaning. As long as literal retains its real meaning it can be used in any situation where you want to indicate that you’re not speaking figuratively. If I want to express the idea that what I’m talking about is blinding in the sense that it will cause you to lose your sight, I can say “Watch out, staring at that welder is literally blinding.” Same thing with any other word I wish to use in its non-figurative meaning - I can indicate this by using the word literal or literally.

But if these words themselves lost their meaning, I have no recourse. If I tell somebody “Watch out for that literally blinding light” they might turn around to look at it. I can’t even even say “That literally blinding light is literally dangerous and I am saying this in the literally literal sense” because when I visit my newly-blinded friend in the hospital the next day they’ll tell me “I thought you were just going overboard on the intensifiers.” If we lose the use of the words literal and literally in their non-figurative senses then we lose the ability to use any word in its non-figurative sense.

One final example to convey my point. If we were traveling through the jungle, would you want to lose the important distinction between me warning you to “Watch out for all the fucking gorillas around here” and warning you to “Watch out for all the literally fucking gorillas around here”?

[Alan_Smithee]

@Riemann

Descriptivism means empiricism, not just “being descriptive” in general terms. I think the coinage was to precisely to emphasize that the empirical evidence-based science of linguistics is a world apart from prescriptivism (where by prescriptivism I don’t just mean stylistic opinions, I mean the fallacy that language requires externally imposed rules).
[My bold]

You are describing (in bold) a perfectly scientific approach to seeking knowledge from empirical data. By definition, that’s not prescriptivism.

All linguistics is by definition descriptivist=empirical, as is all of science.
Prescriptivism seeks to impose externally-derived rules, that’s not part of any science.
They are mutually exclusive.

You seem to have your own definitions for certain terms that are more rigid and restrictive than the way they are generally used. That’s fine, but I stand by my statement that some self-described descriptivists, who I would also call descriptivists, sometimes dismiss aesthetic claims about language as nonsensical or naive. This is not a straw man. If you want to claim that these are not true descriptivists because they are not well-studied in the field of linguistics, that’s on you, but it doesn’t refute anything in my first post.

[Alan_Smithee]

@Little_Nemo

Heads rarely explode. Which is why you can say something like “his head exploded” and people will understand that you’re using a metaphor to communicate that the person in question lost his temper.

But, as President Kennedy demonstrated in 1963, sometimes heads do explode. And we use to be able to communicate this fact. When we said “his head literally exploded” people understood that we were explicitly not using a metaphor - the person we are discussing lost his life not his temper.

We did? When? The figurative of literally dates back centuries. I seriously doubt that on November 23, 1963, if you had told someone, “When I heard about the president being shot yesterday, it literally made my head explode,” that anyone in the English-speaking world would have responded, “You mean someone shot you, too? Or you had a massive stroke? But you’re talking to me today!? You must have gotten amazing medical care! What hospital did you go to?”

[Riemann]

@Little_Nemo

But if these words themselves lost their meaning, I have no recourse. If I tell somebody “Watch out for that literally blinding light” they might turn around to look at it…

I’m having a Poe’s Law moment. Is this serious? You’re claiming objective justification of your personal distaste for this usage of literally because it’s a Health & Safety matter?

[Go_Arachnid_Laser_1]

@Little_Nemo

Not at all. The special case of literal is in its meaning. As long as literal retains its real meaning it can be used in any situation where you want to indicate that you’re not speaking figuratively. If I want to express the idea that what I’m talking about is blinding in the sense that it will cause you to lose your sight, I can say “Watch out, staring at that welder is literally blinding.” Same thing with any other word I wish to use in its non-figurative meaning - I can indicate this by using the word literal or literally.

But it’s not a special case. It’s still a word like any other, subject to the same rules of usage, and the meaning varies depending on the context like any other word.

Your example doesn’t show a special need to make an exception of it because it could be used with any other modifier.

“Watch out! That light will completely blind you!”
"AAAAGH!! I assumed you meant that it would only partially blind me and were being hyperbolic! Curse my inability to be aware of the context and tone of a phrase!

“That light will surely blind you!”
“Gasp! I thought you meant that it was only a probability! Now I’m blind!”

"That light is blinding!!
“Nooo! Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you say that the light would literally blind me in the literal sense, like I obviously needed? For some reason?”

So again, I still don’t see what makes ‘literal’ such a big exception.

[Miller]

@Little_Nemo

I’m not a prescriptivist. I don’t insist that people only use words like “explode” in cases where something blew up. I’m fine with using “explode” as a metaphor; it’s the kind of thing that expands a language.

Prescriptivist doesn’t mean “never uses metaphors.” Prescriptivist means that you believe that there are a set of rules that language must conform to in order to be “correct.” By contrast, descriptivists believe that rules are defined by usage. Descriptivists look at how people are using language, and try to figure out rules that that describe what they’re observing. Prescriptivists decide on a set of rules beforehand, and then dismiss any usage that doesn’t conform to their rule set.

When you get right down to it, the distinction between the two groups is very much like the distinction between creationists and evolutionary biologists.

@Riemann

I’m having a Poe’s Law moment. Is this serious? You’re claiming objective justification of your personal distaste for this usage of literally because it’s a Health & Safety matter?

Hey, don’t underestimate the persistent threat we all face every day of rutting gorillas.

[Enright3]

@don_t_ask

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.

Ugh, this is the culture you see in most every Reddit post.
To that I say:
“Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly.”
― Spencer W. Kimball

Didn’t Bill Cosby go on a rant about Eddit Murphy’s cussing (or Richard Pryor)? Then he later went on rant about Jon Stewart’s cussing. As much as he’s fallen from grace now, I can’t help but agree with him in this case. If you have to throw the word “fucking” in there to accentuate your point, then maybe it’s not that great of a point.