Anyway, here’s a thread for the literally discussion, and even there I say “we’ve gone over this a zillion times.” Should be up there with “Rio” or something.
That’s a meaningless comment, since linguistics as a science is empirical and objective. If some aspect of language is in common use, linguistics may interest itself in this empirical fact, but not in passing judgment on it. Science doesn’t have “sides” – it observes and reports. And no one denies that this usage of “literally” is quite widespread.
Whether one might personally regard such usage as stupid and regressive is a different matter. Linguists can be mercilessly critical of poor…