You don’t agree that it would be unexpected to encounter 10k spoons without ever encountering a knife?
Not at a store called “Spoons Galore.”
I was simply correcting the notion that the song defines irony in a way that implies just an unfortunate event is ironic. It doesn’t. Most of the examples in the song are actual irony where the expectation does run contrary.
You think this is the straightforward, not at all disingenuous way to parse that example?
I mean, find me any example of irony and I can throw in ad hoc suppositions like that to make it not meet the definition any more.
I always considered the only real example of irony from that song to be the guy who was afraid to fly but forced himself to get on a plane anyway, and it crashed. At least, from the perspective of his friends and family who likely reassured him that flying is the safest form of travel there is, and he had absolutely nothing to be worried about.
Bu then, even to make that example ironic I had to fill in my own back story there about his friends and family.
But “literally” DOES mean “literally” when used like that. It is being used as an exaggeration, and for an exaggeration to work, it plays on the literal meaning of the words. That’s the whole point. It’s overdone, yes, but is not used to mean “figuratively.” Just like when you say “I’m so hungry, I can eat a million hamburgers,” “million” means “million” there, and the idiom works because what it describes is the impossible.
But, anyway, there’s literally millions of threads here that go over the trite “literally” debate.
My theory is that ‘literally’ is a live example of how language evolves, for better or worse.
- First, people who understand exactly what literally means start to use the word for creative exaggeration: “If you tell that story one more time, I’m literally going to rip your head off!”
- Then, newer generations get so used to the ironic use of literally they lose the ironic meaning and start using ‘literally’ to actually mean ‘figuratively’.
- Dictionaries finally admit defeat and add the figurative meaning of literally as a secondary definition.
- The secondary definition eventually becomes the primary, then the only definition.
We’re somewhere between stages 2 and 3.
What I don’t get is people who object to “literally” and cry about its loss of meaning don’t seem to object to similar words when used as emphatics like “actually,” “really,” and “honestly,” to name a few.
Do they not? We have some professional writers and editors on this forum who would know about the editing of such language and whether or not it is considered bad writing.
It’s lazy writing. I’m an English major and taught ESL for a couple years, as well as copy edited at a newspaper for a short spell and proofread a couple novels. I know AP Style best, Chicago Manual of Style, and MLA. This is mostly stuff I did twenty years ago, though. But it’s not like I’m coming from it from an ignorant perspective.
I’ve seen an expansion in the use of “officially”, especially from my kids, and it seems to have evolved to mean almost the opposite of the standard definition. As in “officially he’s supposed to be the best guy on the team, but the truth is he’s over-rated”.
The way your example sentence is stated, it’s sounds like “officially” is used to mean something like “on paper” or “common wisdom” or “the narrative that is being pushed.”
So a stand - in for “ostensibly”?
“Common wisdom” would probably describe it best. But it’s even used for widespread rumors. The general idea is that the speaker is casting some doubt on the idea, and describes the idea as “officially”, with the intention of suggesting that it may not be true and that the standing it has may not be justified.
To me, that feels like a usage of “officially” I grew up with, when it’s contrasted with a “but” or something afterwards. I’d have to hear more examples to see where it diverges.
*coming to it
I need my morning coffee.
Well, there are plenty of substitutes for emphatics but if ‘literally’ comes to mean ‘figuratively’, what word do we use to mean ‘in an actual, factual sense’?
Factually
You could make the exact same argument for “really” and “actually.” “Really” literally means “in actual fact.” “Actually” means “as the truth or facts of a situation; really.”
Like you can say, “I’m so hungry, I could really eat a horse right now.” The idiom would typically omit “really” or substitute “literally” for “really,” but it can be used that way, counter to reality.
I factually don’t think that word works quite as well as ‘literally’.