“Literally” means “exactly precisely what happens” or it means “what might happen, as a metaphor.”
“Decimated” means “completely destroyed and smashed,” or it means “reduced by one-tenth”
“Enormity” means either “a big, big, big thing, so big” or it means “a really horrible thing”
“Podium” means either “a raised platform for someone to stand on to elevate them” or “the lectern”
“Penultimate” means either “the mostest of the mostest” or “the next to the last thing”
Most words, I don’t have any problem with their meanings shifting. Usually, the meaning is clear from context, but occasionally, ambiguity arises. But even when there’s ambiguity, it’s still not a problem, because you can ask for clarification.
Except for “literally”. I can refer to someone’s head exploding, for instance, and if there’s an off chance that they might have been hit by a high-powered weapon, or the like, I can clarify that I mean that their head figuratively exploded, or that it literally exploded. But when the word “literally” is itself the word whose meaning is shifting, that’s no longer possible. There become some concepts which it is no longer possible to express linguistically. It’s verbicide.
In what way is “She was literally glowing” closer to the “reality they were meant to amplify” than “My head literally exploded?”
You’re going to have to show some evidence that people who use phrases like, “My head literally exploded,” don’t know what “literally” means. The fact that they use it in a way that you personally don’t like doesn’t mean they don’t know the definition.
One of the nuances of the language is that you can use words in a non-literal sense. This applies to all words, including “literal” itself. By arguing against this standard and well-established usage, you are, yourself, demonstrating a fairly profound (but, tragically, common) failure to understand the nuances of language.
Now, I’ll certainly grant that Wodehouse and Fitzgerald et. al. are better than most at using this device in a way that elevates their prose, but that’s equally true of every other literary device. If there is an acceptable way to use “literally” in a figurative sense, then every usage of literally in a figurative sense is acceptable, and you’re just squabbling about aesthetics.
Again, the meaning of “literally” is not “shifting.” It has shifted, and it did so before your grandparents were born.
That aside, I’m trying to put your concern into some sort of real-world scenario, and I’m finding the exercise hilarious.
Corporal: Sarge, there’s snipers on that ridge! Smith’s head literally exploded when they started shooting!
Sergeant: He was really surprised, huh?
Corporal: No, I mean he was shot in the head by a sniper, and his head literally blew into separate chunks.
Sergeant: Well, I imagine getting shot at for the first time can be pretty shocking, but he’ll get used to it.
Corporal: Sarge, he’s dead! His corpse is right here, and you can see that he’s literally lost his head!
Sergeant: He’s in the army now! He needs to get his emotions under control!
Or, the shorter version from the other side, perhaps?
“When Smith saw the sales numbers, his head literally exploded!”
“OH MY GOD! CALL THE COPS! ACTIVE SHOOTER! ACTIVE SHOOTER! EVERYONE SHELTER IN PLACE!”
Amusing, but neither seems super likely. Maybe you can provide a real world example where this sort of confusion caused a serious, prolonged problem that couldn’t be ironed out through additional communication and clarification? Given that this usage has been around since the Holy Roman Empire was a thing, there should be plenty to pick from.
I’ve been asking the get-off-my-lawners for that example for years, now, and they’ve never obliged. I doubt this thread’s gonna be the place where they find the one example in English where the use of literally as an intensifier created confusion.
No? Then what is the problem? Given the general superiority of your control over the English language, I expect it should be a simple task for you to explain the core of your discontent over the issue in a way even a simple, unlettered ignoramus like myself could eventually come to comprehend.
Whoa whoa whoa there pal, remember this is English we’re talking about. There is no such thing for us as a concept which is impossible to express linguistically, even if we have to kludge it out of spare parts borrowed from four different languages and a pop-culture glue gun.
For synonyms for the literal sense of “literally”, I recommend, e.g., the classic and refreshing Latin “ad literam”, the sturdy periphrasis “in the literal sense”, the staidly substitutive “actually” and “without exaggeration”, and the cheekily juvenile “for reals”.
Originally, a word had a meaning. If you wanted to say something was reduced by a tenth, you said it was decimated.
But some people had weak vocabularies. They only understand words in a vague fuzzy sense. So they started using the word decimate to mean all kinds of different things. When they said something was decimated, maybe they meant it was reduced by a tenth. Maybe they meant it was reduced by ninety percent. Maybe they meant it was thirsty. The people they were talking to had no idea.
But those of us who still understood what the word meant could at least still express it by saying something was literally decimated. We had to use an extra word because the fuzzy minded had weakened the language but we could still express ourselves clearly.
And then the fuzzy minded took the word literal. And now when we want to express the real meaning of the word decimated, we can’t. Because if we say something’s decimated, people won’t know if we’re using the word correctly or not. And even if we say something was literally decimated, a listener still won’t know.
Language is being lost as a means of communicating thoughts clearly because we’re losing our vocabulary. And when we lose the ability to communicate thoughts clearly, we lose the ability to have clear thoughts. We end up lost if a mental fog of things we don’t really remember and don’t really understand.
And this is bad. Because when people can’t understand anything more complicated than a bumper sticker, they end up yelling “Build The Wall!” at a Trump rally. People who aren’t capable of rational thought aren’t capable of telling the difference between good leadership and demagoguery.
“Literally” is never, ever, ever used to mean “figuratively.” Not in popular speech, not in the dictionary, and not in the OP.
When someone says “he clear effort of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu to turn Israel literally into a local branch of the Republican Party…is a harmful and serious trend” they do not mean ‘figuratively’. In no sense is the speaker trying to tell you that his words are meant in jest or are contrary to fact. The point of the word ‘literally’ in that sentence is to stress that the speaker is being serious, is being sincere, and is not exaggerating the statement.
When someone says “When Smith saw the sales numbers, his head literally exploded!” they aren’t saying that Smith’s head figuratively exploded. They aren’t saying that what follows is simply a metaphor or a figure of speech. They are saying that Smith’s head actually and sincerely ruptured violently due to the shock of the experience. At no point is the speaker intending to suggest that his words are only figurative. In fact, he’s suggesting the opposite. A prolonged usage might play out as follows:
Bill: “When Smith saw the sales numbers, his head literally exploded!”
Ted: “Really?”
“Yes.”
“So his head separated from his body due to surprise?”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
“So he’s dead now?”
“Absolutely.”
“Because of something he read…”
“That’s what I’m saying to you.”
“I highly doubt that his skull fragmented forcefully because he read something.”
“It did. I’m testifying to you that his brains are on the wall at this moment.”
“It’s not physically possible.”
“Well apparently it is because it happened.”
“Are you sure you’re not just being figurative? Do you mean his head figuratively exploded?”
“No, in fact, I’m saying the opposite of that. That would mean I’m exaggerating, and instead I am being quite serious. Smith is no longer among the living. Because of the sales figures.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well I’m serious. 100% accurate in my description.”
The reader should note that it matters not a bit whether Bill is telling the truth. The true condition of Smith’s skull isn’t relevant to the meaning of Bill’s words.
There are many usages I find distasteful to me, but this …
… is simply not true. There has been no fundamental change in the way that humans use language or in the way that language has continuously evolved throughout recorded history, and presumably since the beginning of human language.
“Decimate” is a really useful example of just how entirely wrongheaded everything you wrote is.
If people stuck to the classical definition of “decimate,” the word would effectively not exist any more, because there are almost no situations where we need a specific word to describe the precise loss of one in ten of a group. I would venture that almost every person who knows the word “decimate,” yourself included, first heard it used in the contemporary sense of “Killed most of.” The word only exists outside of classical studies because the meaning shifted over time to a meaning that is actually useful. If it hadn’t, the word would have been lost. Because we repurposed it to a more useful meaning, it was preserved, and English vocabulary is larger because of it.
Also worth noting, from your post and the list of words in the post you were responding to:
“Decimate” stopped meaning “kill 1 in 10 of a group” in the early 17th century.
“Literal” used in the figurative sense dates back to the last 18th.
“Enormity” meaning “really big” can be tracked back to at least the 1700s.
“Penultimate” meaning “last” (as opposed to “next to last”) does not appear to be common enough to make it into any of the dictionaries I checked. I think Hilarity had a misfire on this one.
Lastly, “podium” meaning “lecturn” is actually of recent vintage. Relatively recent, anyway - it’s been around since 1947, as a specifically American usage.
So, if you want to argue that descriptivist usage of language led to the election of Donald Trump, you’re probably going to have to explain why it took between seventy-two to four hundred years for the effects to manifest.
I find it bizarre that the getofmylawners regularly freak out over “literally,” but never over “really” or “actually.” These words should be much worse offenders, since they contradict reality and what’s actual, instead of mere contradiction of letters.
It’s not about logic. It’s about a social class marker. Headwagging over how the (heh) hoi polloi are ruining modern English is one of the easiest markers of the intelligentsia. No matter that it’s nonsense, it’s the equivalent of donning a false moustache to look old enough to go to a bar.
Not necessarily (although not necessarily false either.) It is consistent to concede that the other terms have already completely lost their meaning but still desire a term that literally means literally unambiguously.
Literally hasn’t lost any meaning, it’s got two related meanings; and nobody in any of the threads has ever found a case in the wild in which the word was ambiguous.
If folks were being consistent, on confronting the absolute lack of evidence of any problem, they’d concede defeat. Instead, they double down. They don’t see it as a case to examine; they fear their intelligentsia card being challenged.