Daniel,
I don’t feel its OK to accept “literally” instead of “figuratively” because the speaker thinks literally=figuratively. By that logic because a speaker thinks chair=table then I have to accept “chair” to have the same meaning as “table”. If that’s weird and mystical to you, then I guess I’m weird and mystical.
Barry 
The answer to that is that literally should not be used the way we have been discussing. I was trying to move to the center to allow for some leeway. But since LHOD insists I don’t agree with him I have decided to change my mind so I really don’t agree. 
Literally means literally. It does not mean figuratively. Table does not mean chair. Say “packed in like sardines”. We all know what “like” means. So we understand that it was crowded, not that you were packed in oil and sealed in a can. That’s what Strunk and White say, and I’m sticking with them.
Also, “When Words Collide” by Kessler/Duncan states “Using intensifiers to bolster a weak or less than precise adjective contributes to wordiness and lack of precision.” So if “packed in like sardines” isn’t good enough, don’t add “literally”, use something else entirely.
At least from in my case I was trying to express what would be generally acceptable from an academic point of view. I don’t think anybody can enforce that acceptability though. Maybe an anthropologist, linguist, or sociologist might have some thoughts on that. I’m a layman so I guess as long as it’s a free country people can do whatever they like. I’m just going to point and laugh when I hear it.
As is your right. Generally speaking, you can control what words you use, and to a lesser extent you can control what words others use when talking to you, either by expressing confusion or disapproval. That’s why chair =/= table, by the way; anyone and everyone you talk to would be confused, because you’d be the only one using the word that way. Enough people use literally in its ‘controversial’ usage that for the most part very few people are genuinely confused as to what it means. So it gets used and is for the most part acceptable to the common English speaker.
Regarding your post 82, I think Strunk and White’s guide is a holy text as well, but only in regards to writing. Writing and formal speech are quite different beasts from regular colloquial speech, and as such are held to different standards. I don’t much mind literally being used in normal informal speech, but if I were a teacher grading an essay I’d mark off points. There are more precise ways of expressing yourself when you have time to compose your thoughts as you do in writing. However, regular speech is usually real-time and off the cuff, and it’s impossible and unnecessary to hold people to such high standards when they’re composing sentences in literally seconds or less than seconds. Besides, context is much more abundant in a normal conversation than it is in writing, and Strunk and White’s rules are geared toward that; they assist in providing clarity in situations where tone or body language or word stress or what have you are unavailable to provide context.
RE #84:
I agree mostly but there seems to be a trickle-down from spoken to written so I feel the need to point and laugh today so I might not have to scream and cry later on.
Are you stating or implying that the ‘correctness’ of an English sentence is its interpretability by the speaker? This seems to be an admirable intent to recognise the evolutionary process of language by utterly eliminating the meaning of the word “correct” as it regards word use. Going by probability of interpretability by the common english speaker, the sentence “My lexicon is erudite and my manner quixotic” is ‘less correct’ than “Me wants a beers.” I find that notion ridiculous, and based on that, I don’t see “if it’s comprehended, it’s correct” as a beneficial approach to the matter. Words have correct definitions and uses, usually found in one dictionary or another and generally agreed upon, and though those change over time, that evolution doesn’t remove the fact that they do have correct meanings at any given point.
And while I don’t think that a person should necessarily make a habit of policing others for emitting malformed examples of the language, the decision not to make an issue of it does not imply that correct and incorrect uses of language are indistiguishable.
(emphasis added)
Okay, so I guessed you’d use the wrong nouns. Still, can I call 'em or can I call 'em?
That’s not at all what my logic leads to, as a cursory reading of my posts would show you. Nevertheless, it’s one of the absurd arguments raised by the mystics.
Daniel
So close and yet so far. The correctness of an English sentence is determined by the consensus, not by a one-off happenstance. It is not ‘good’ English to say ‘Me wants a beer’ because nobody except the Hulk or Bizarro would use the objective form in the nominal position (IOW, using me where I should be).
Conversely, “My lexicon is erudite and my manner quixotic” is good English because its grammar matches the grammar used in what is considered acceptable English. As for semantic meaning, it’s incumbent on you to use vocabulary your audience is familiar with and it’s incumbent on your audience to know words you’re likely to use, although that’s not as important. There’s a reason there’s common colloquial English; you don’t know if the clerk at the gas station is going to understand you if you say “My lexicon is erudite”, but the probability that he’ll understand “I know a lot of five-dollar words” is much higher. It is, in fact, not proper to use words that go over your audience’s head, just as it isn’t proper to use words that are beneath your audience (this is what most people complain about; they tend to hold colloquial English to higher standards and then claim it’s not good English when it was never meant to be held to those standards).
Left Hand of Dorkness, here’s another pair for you: “literally” and “figuratively”. The question of whether nonsynonymous words can be used in place of each other is directly germaine to the discussion, and examples thereof are relevent as well. It’s as if you’re laughing “Those silly scientists, bringing fossils into the evolution debate, just like I said they would. Can I call 'em or can I call 'em?”
Addressing your argument directly (based on, yes, a cursory reading of your posts):
If I and a friend agree that the word “walking” will be code for “beautiful woman”, and I say to him “Don’t look now, but there’s a walking walking this way”, is my use of the word proper english merely because I was not misunderstood? Oh, and do you think that “Pardon me, I’d like to find a bathroom” is incorrect English if spoken to someone who doesn’t understand English? Whether it’s ‘proper’ to speak english to a non-speaker is an entirely separate matter, of course.
Speaking of which, BayleDomon, How does one distinguish in an absolute manner between the supposed lingo “Colloquial English” and “this guy is misusing the word?” “That’s cool, man” when spoken to a woman about an explosion is colloquial english of a sort; “Pull up a table” is not; I think we can both agree. How many people have to misuse the word “literally” before the usage is lingo? I ask, because I rarely if ever hear it. Perhaps the people I know don’t speak Colloquial?
Slang, in the past and current, has used bad, cool, hot, and any number of non-synonymous words all to mean “good”.
I may have been misusing/overapplying the term colloquial. I’m merely talking about standard informal English you might use with friends, colleagues, or the guy behind you in line you struck up a conversation with because the clerk is moving slow. Prescriptive rules for informal English don’t really apply because people will talk how they want to talk.
You seem to be desperate to find some hole in the logic at which you can point, say “Aha!” and poof, the alternate meaning of literally vanishes in a puff of objectivity. The reality is that it exists, a substantial group of people have found a use for it, and they understand each other when it’s used. Further, someone who has never heard the word used that way before may be momentarily puzzled, but no more so than most people are on learning a new word. As much as you’d like it not to, for most people it works to emphasize metaphorical phrasing and is no more difficult to understand than “That is the baddest ride I’ve ever seen!” when used as a compliment.
These are stylists, and as mentioned above, usage in English is often a question of style, or what any particular person prefers. Instead of going back and forth on what is “correct,” I prefer to use the term “advisable,” especially taking into consideration social context and desired register, and whether one is speaking or writing, or writing email for that matter. A good ESL dictionary (such as Longman’s) will tell you these things that regular dictionaries take for granted. So it might say, when they get around to addressing this issue, something like this:
But while I agree with Kessler/Duncan that intensifers should be avoided more often, it’s mostly not because of the need for “precision.” I don’t know why these stylists are so obsessed with “precision.” One of the greatest things about language is ambiguity. What they should make clear is that avoiding these unnecessary intensifiers will make a good impression on the TAs that have to read your college compositions.
The alternate defintion of ‘literally’ is not slang, and never has been. Don’t muddy the water.
I seem desperate? Interesting. Actually I’m about to concede the argument, though not because your argument was terribly compelling. (If you like, I can dismantle it for you by sentence.)
The real meat of your position is in your flat assertion that everybody’s doing it. And if everyone is, then it’s correct usage; definitions do change. However, I asked for an independent reason for me to think that the usage is correct, keeping in mind that I don’t actually hear it in practice that often; absent hearing it on every corner, why should I accept it as proper usage if on some rare occasion I might hear it? Your assertions and analogies were unsatisfying to me as a response to my question.
In my book, the way to find out the definition of a word is to look in a dictionary. If the word use is common enough to be ‘correct’ and more than a couple of years old, it should be in there, correct? Correct. So, is the ‘intensifier’ alternate definition of ‘literally’ in the dictionary? To my surprise, yes, it is. And so, I concede. (On this word, anyway.)
(Read the notes in each dictionary explaining the inclusion of the ‘intensifier’ definition. Funny stuff.)
Fair enough. And no, you don’t need to deconstruct my argument. I got cocky and tried to second guess, which never works out well.
Just to be a fair sport, after reading post #92 I must also admit that since the usage is generally accepted based on the citings it has to be considered correct and acceptable. I still disagree with the logic that if a particular speaker and audience agree on an alternate meaning that it automatically becomes correct. In this case the usage must be must more prevelant than I had given credit for based on my experience. Weird and mystical signing off.
Check and see if whatchamcallit is in your dictionary. (And I mean your paper, dictionary, not some online thing.) Not that I disagree with you. I just think a good dictionary should have the word whatchamacallit in it.
At the risk of reopening the debate…it does in fact become correct for that speaker and audience. New words and new meanings have to start somewhere, after all, and spread to people who hear the word and accept it as useful. A word doesn’t become objectively correct because it’s put in the dictionary, it’s put in the dictionary because it’s become correct for a significant number of people.
Don’t you just hate it when folks don’t know that “unique” means “one of a kind” and should not take modifiers like “very”?
Agreed to some extent. It is understood by that speaker and audience, but I was viewing the discussion as to whether something is grammatically correct. A speaker and audience may understand it without it being correct or technically correct. Isn’t that what slang is in the first place?
I’m going to assume you and your friend were walking along when you saw the beautiful woman coming toward you. Before I tell you whether your use of English was correct, I’ll need you to tell me something: were you walking correctly or incorrectly? Because that question makes at least as much sense as the question of whether you were talking correctly or incorrectly.
Daniel
He didn’t use the word “correctly,” he used the expression “proper English.” Do you admit there is such a thing as standard English, or is it impossible for someone to misspell a word, misprounce a word, use a malapropism, etc.?