On September 21 2011 08:41 TabyLing wrote: I don't really think it's that bad. Is it really so surprising that people use emotion in the way they speak and want to add emphasis? The formal meaning of literally hasn't changed and you would use its emphatic meaning in a formal setting, but honestly what sentance sounds more likely for someone to say "he was so funny, I literally died of laughter" "he was so funny, I figuratively died of laughter" They both have the same intended meaning, and because we are human and not computers we can infer the inteded meaning from the context, even if the word isn't used with its proper dictionary meaning. Then sentance still makes sense, if you don't act like a robot anyway.... ofc you could say "he was so funny, I died of laughter" but people like to add things in for emphasis to really show their emotions. Why is literally a good emphasiser in these cases? Because of it's true meaning, it holds more weight and impact.
Imagine a word. Let's take 'all'. Now imagine that it now means 'half' too, because people who didn't have it all still want to add emphasis. It would be a clusterfuck, no one would know if you had all the apples or half the apples or a million oranges..
On September 21 2011 08:41 TabyLing wrote: I don't really think it's that bad. Is it really so surprising that people use emotion in the way they speak and want to add emphasis? The formal meaning of literally hasn't changed and you would use its emphatic meaning in a formal setting, but honestly what sentance sounds more likely for someone to say "he was so funny, I literally died of laughter" "he was so funny, I figuratively died of laughter" They both have the same intended meaning, and because we are human and not computers we can infer the inteded meaning from the context, even if the word isn't used with its proper dictionary meaning. Then sentance still makes sense, if you don't act like a robot anyway.... ofc you could say "he was so funny, I died of laughter" but people like to add things in for emphasis to really show their emotions. Why is literally a good emphasiser in these cases? Because of it's true meaning, it holds more weight and impact.
Imagine a word. Let's take 'all'. Now imagine that it now means 'half' too, because people who didn't have it all still want to add emphasis. It would be a clusterfuck, no one would know if you had all the apples or half the apples or a million oranges..
Yeah but we aren't talking about a word like all meaning half, and I can't really see where those words would cross over in meanings, but if they did I'm sure the context of the useage would provide the meaning.
I mean we have words that sound the same but mean different things, we all seem capable of understanding when someone is talking about the weather and when some one wants to know whether you are going out. Like I said we are human, we can infer meanings from the context, we don't even have to have a word spelt correctly to understand it.
We can speak with emotion and add things in for emphasis and the majority of people get it and understand and have no problem. Language is actually really interesting in how it changes and evolves, I don't see a problem with literally being used as an emphatic word, because it makes sense to me and adds something to the sentance.
I thought when people said 'literally' in this way, it was sarcastic/snarky. Well, I never had much respect for webster's definitions anyway. This would kind of be like changing the definition of 'died' to 'was embarrassed' just because that's what people who say 'omg I died!' mean. "I literally died!" same thing... Doesn't mean the person saying it means they literally 'literally died,' it's just... facetious? I don't think we could call this 'language changing' so much as webster doesn't understand what a joke is.
This happens quite often in language if I'm not mistaken. A worse used repeatedly by many people with a different meaning than in the dictionary will eventually gain that new definition. "gay" went from happy to homosexual.
On September 21 2011 10:52 atrocity3010 wrote: They'll go after "irony" next.
T_T I pray the day never comes when "loose" becomes a new spelling of "lose".... I'll loose my mind...
On September 21 2011 08:41 TabyLing wrote: I don't really think it's that bad. Is it really so surprising that people use emotion in the way they speak and want to add emphasis? The formal meaning of literally hasn't changed and you would use its emphatic meaning in a formal setting, but honestly what sentance sounds more likely for someone to say "he was so funny, I literally died of laughter" "he was so funny, I figuratively died of laughter" They both have the same intended meaning, and because we are human and not computers we can infer the inteded meaning from the context, even if the word isn't used with its proper dictionary meaning. Then sentance still makes sense, if you don't act like a robot anyway.... ofc you could say "he was so funny, I died of laughter" but people like to add things in for emphasis to really show their emotions. Why is literally a good emphasiser in these cases? Because of it's true meaning, it holds more weight and impact.
The same people who use 'literally' as a replacement for the word 'figuratively' are the same people that talk like this:
umm... personally, i like dont think this is umm like that big of a deal, i like umm literally use this word umm i mean in this uhh context like all the time.
i like just umm dont see umm the like problem, man.
The English language shouldn't be changed because some people talk like idiots.
On September 21 2011 06:26 suspiciousbear wrote: I refuse to accept that second meaning of the world. The fact that they changed it isn't a problem, but the mere notion of a word meaning two opposite things is absolutely baffling. The word no longer has clear meaning. One can no longer understand what that word stands for when it is used. If everyone misused the word 'no' to mean 'yes', would no alternatively be defined as an affirmatory response?
Context. It's always about context. Almost every word in English has more than one definition, and context is the way you tell them apart. And besides, this isn't exactly an anomaly in English; the word "cleave" means both "to split apart" and "to bring together". While I agree that this is just a stupid change, it's not like this is somehow the end of being able to understand what someone means by "literally". Popular usage has changed quite a few definitions, so it's not a big surprise that this was next in line.
heighth is, in fact, already a cataloged word. ("noun: 1. obsolete spelling of height. 2. (US proscribed) (alternative form of height). ")
The reason this definition of "literally" has made it into the dictionary is that for the most part linguists are descriptivist. Victorian prescriptivism - telling people how they "must" use language - failed, and will always fail. One of the big historical reasons that English is so fucked up is because of high-society prescriptivists attempting to codify everything by assigning Latinate rules to English*, a language in which they do not apply and do not belong.
Because modern syntax experts understand that language will change no matter what you tell people, they are generally content to catalogue what people actually do as opposed to telling them what they ought to do. This alternate definition of "literally" has been acknowledged so that, say, a non-native speaker needing to understand the word will have available the knowledge that it is used it in this way.
That said, symbol systems such as languages are useless if we do not collectively agree on the assigned meaning of a given symbol. Ergo, I absolutely agree that people should not use the word "literally" as an emphatic. Literate people are part of the population too, and we are able to push back against our fellow speakers. For metaphorical language such as "I died", I would suggest we tell people to express the metaphor by itself and let the power of its image speak for itself, or substitute a different emphasis word such as "so", "really," or "actually". [edit2: and "seriously"]
If you're paying attention, you'll notice that these three words I've suggested seem to deserve the same defense from mutation as the word "literally". However, these have already been co-opted for use in emphasis - it's too late for them, and all of you reading this probably use them this way. Context, as noted earlier in this thread, determines whether listeners react to the use of these words. When used for emphasis, these words are barely on the radar and not given the weight they carry otherwise (when used to describe facts as being part of objective reality).
"Literally" is special, I think, because its definition ought to specify "not-figurative", an important distinction in a language with so many fixed-phrase metaphors, and it is kind of our last resort now that "so" "really" and "seriously" [edit2: and "actually"] have been weakened. Protecting the original function of this word will be important for group understanding going forward, I think.
* edit: They did this because they did not want common street gutter Cockney scum "ruining" their precious language - well, look how well that worked?
[QUOTE]On September 21 2011 09:10 TabyLing wrote: [QUOTE]On September 21 2011 08:44 Redmark wrote: [QUOTE]On September 21 2011 08:41 TabyLing wrote: I don't really think it's that bad. [/QUOTE]
Well, it's not that unlikely of a comparison.
People exaggerate (thank you spell correction) all the time. "My ex-wife took all my money!" when in fact she only got a part of his/her money. What if exaggerated use of the word "all" suddenly made us change it's meaning to "somewhere between nothing and everything"? That would just as stupid as this imo.
On September 21 2011 08:41 TabyLing wrote: I don't really think it's that bad.
Well, it's not that unlikely of a comparison.
People exaggerate (thank you spell correction) all the time. "My ex-wife took all my money!" when in fact she only got a part of his/her money. What if exaggerated use of the word "all" suddenly made us change it's meaning to "somewhere between nothing and everything"? That would just as stupid as this imo.
EPT
