The problem is when you take a word that conveys a unique meaning and assign it a meaning that is already adequately described by other words. You simultaneously add redundancy and destroy a bit of expressive power. You add an unneeded usage while destroying one that is needed - perhaps the only single word that is adequate for its particular task. Don’t you dare try and pretend that this is outrage over the existence of synonyms; that’s a dishonest and specious claim and I’m fairly sure you know that.
Sure there is. Like I said above, you could employ “non-figuratively” if you like. Or you could employ a short phrase, which is really no cumbersome than a single word. “The astronaut’s career skyrocketed - and I don’t mean metaphorically!”. That sort of thing.
What expressive power has been lost? Has anyone had any difficulty conveying to me the very thing they intend for “alternate” to always mean?
(And, in general, why should anyone care if something can be expressed in a single word as opposed to two or three? Like I said, short phrases are no more cumbersome than single words.)
I agree that it’s a great word, but it’s more applicable to something or someone that is not sufficiently developed, mature, ripe, or experienced to suffice for some purpose. It is like effete, but for reasons that are opposite.
Only because everybody’s forcing the word into this dual meaning. I’m just arguing it’s an unnecessary thing when an almost completely similar word already exists to cover that second meaning.
If this carried on, we’d eventually have only twelve words, each with 350,000 meanings. He said, sarcastically.
It is, however, infinitely less of a cognitive leap to go from effete to jejune than from effete to effeminate. Which would either be a case of damning with faint praise or praising with faint damns, I can never get those straight… 
If this language with only 12 words was perfectly comprehensible to other speakers of the language, that would be pretty damn awesome.
If it wasn’t perfectly comprehensible, it wouldn’t exist, because the mainstream wouldn’t let it get that far. Check out the middle you’re excluding some time, it may be enlightening.
I could, if I wanted to say something that no one ever says. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the “non-figuratively” spoken aloud, and I’ve rarely seen it in writing. Which is unsurprising, because it’s awkward to have to stick a negative prefix onto a word that means the opposite of what you really mean.
The loss of “literally” in its literal sense isn’t an insurmountable barrier to communication, but there isn’t always an elegant way to replace it. This ranks pretty low on the scale of problems in the world today, and I’m not especially bothered by the use of “literally” as a generic intensifier. I just find it irritating that I can’t say what I want to say in a manner that is, literally, correct and expect to be understood.
You mean like that word in bold?
Yes, exactly like that. That was a stylistic choice that I made partially to be ironic but mostly because “unsurprising” is weaker than “obvious” and in this context I felt it was more polite. I wouldn’t want to say “unsurprising” every single time I meant that something was “obvious” or “expected”, though. If that was what I had to say in order to be understood then I’d just have to deal with it, but I’d still find it annoying.
You’re saying that the 4-syllable word “literally” isn’t less cumbersome than the 5-word, 10-syllable whopper “-- and I don’t mean metaphorically”? This is a whoosh, right?
I’d wager some Brits might argue “literally” has 3 syllables. 
If so, they’d probably count 5 in “metaphorically”, so the difference is still the same.
And I’ve never heard anyone pronounce metaphorically with 6 syllables. The last two always get smooshed together.
No, I’m serious. When was the last time you felt like it was a slog to get through “and I don’t mean metaphorically”? How often are you actually aware of how many syllables your sentences take up?
Look at the very sentence you just wrote. You could’ve gotten away with “4-syllable ‘literally’'s not simpler than 5-word, 10-syllable ‘and I don’t mean metaphorically’? Do you jest?”. But it didn’t matter that you didn’t. The extra syllables didn’t burden you in any noticeable way.
Blind syllable-count minimization is not a reasonable rubric by which to judge the expressive ease of a language.
Indeed. By that metric, languages like German and Welsh are practically useless.
It’s because no one ever says that that they don’t feel they had to slog their way through it.
The last few posts, since they’re the only time I’d ever consider using that clunker.
Never, although I am aware of when I’m putting unnecessary time and effort in a sentence. I never stop myself and say “wow, that was way too verbose” because I’d avoid wasting the effort in the first place.
I’m not performing a quantitative syllable inventory of the English language here. I’m comparing the relative merits of two words. I agree time to speak would be a better measure. Let’s time ourselves on saying “literally” versus “-- and I don’t mean metaphorically” (and be honest, OK?). Let’s measure the breath required to say it. Let’s think about the cognitive load of one affirmative word versus parsing a 4-word negation of “metaphorically”. I’m willing to look at any measure except a tedious repetition of your own obviously heartfelt opinion.
Fair enough. I should’ve said, “When was the last time you felt like it was a slog to get through any phrase of comparable length?”.
For example, the sentence you just gave. You opened with 11-syllable “It’s because no one ever says that that they” when you could’ve used 6-syllable “Since it’s never said, folks”. Did it feel like a lot of tiresome effort to say it your way?