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blagoonga123
United States2068 Posts
1: in a literal sense or manner : actually <took the remark literally> <was literally insane> 2: in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins> god dammit internet what have you done.   | ||
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beberly
United States117 Posts
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Orpheos
United States1663 Posts
this is hilarious, and i know some grammar nazi friends of mine that will be super raging. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
5-stars for entertainment value to me | ||
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Newbistic
China2912 Posts
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
That's so bad -_- | ||
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storm44
1293 Posts
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jimmyjingle
United States472 Posts
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
On September 21 2011 06:06 jimmyjingle wrote: why are you guys so upset? words change, this is virtually meaningless. It changed to now convey the exact OPPOSITE meaning it originally was meant to be used for. | ||
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Al Bundy
7257 Posts
Anyway I agree with you, words have precise meanings for a reason. We can't just use them however we want. | ||
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Jerubaal
United States7684 Posts
On September 21 2011 06:11 AlBundy wrote: I literally died from laughter when reading this thread. Anyway I agree with you, words have precise meanings for a reason. We can't just use them however we want. Darnit, you beat me to it. And if you use 'guesstimate' or 'ginormous' you waive the right to complain about this. | ||
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bellhop
United States165 Posts
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Omnipresent
United States871 Posts
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
Literally. | ||
conTAgi0n
United States335 Posts
This one I find kind of annoying though, since it almost seems as though that usage undermines the word's more traditional meaning. thefreedictionary gives a more clear definition (including the new meaning) and has a good note on why the word took on that alternate meaning: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/literally | ||
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MinoMino
Norway1103 Posts
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synapse
China13814 Posts
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suspiciousbear
Canada112 Posts
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Charger
United States2405 Posts
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myzael
Poland605 Posts
On September 21 2011 05:55 Newbistic wrote: The The process is normal but the idiocy of changes amazes me. There are rumours that in polish one could soon use the form "poszłem" which I would compare to "I goed". Damn. And I've read about those spelling reform requests not long ago too... | ||
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Mindcrime
United States6899 Posts
On September 21 2011 06:15 Jerubaal wrote: Darnit, you beat me to it. And if you use 'guesstimate' or 'ginormous' you waive the right to complain about this. Those are portmanteaus like "brunch" and "wikipedia" totally different issue | ||
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
On September 21 2011 06:40 Mindcrime wrote: Those are portmanteaus like "brunch" and "wikipedia" totally different issue Given that "literally" now means "figuratively" it's only a matter of time before "irregardless" becomes a word that means "regardless" | ||
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Dalguno
United States2446 Posts
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Lomak
United States311 Posts
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Ikonn
Netherlands1958 Posts
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MCDayC
United Kingdom14464 Posts
I get frustrated by stupidity. I actually don't mind language changing, but going in a direction which literally (and I mean literally) makes no sense makes me feel crazy. | ||
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hypercube
Hungary2735 Posts
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Kenpachi
United States9908 Posts
today in English class we were discussing about the difference between literal and figurative | ||
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XXGeneration
United States625 Posts
 my brain hurts | ||
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nttea
Sweden4353 Posts
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Myles
United States5162 Posts
On September 21 2011 06:43 Blazinghand wrote: Given that "literally" now means "figuratively" it's only a matter of time before "irregardless" becomes a word that means "regardless" LOL, I see what you did there. | ||
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jimmyjingle
United States472 Posts
the words are literally incomperable. | ||
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Deleted User 135096
3624 Posts
Edit: I make one edit and, lol Torte! | ||
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
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OmniEulogy
Canada6593 Posts
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Aegisky
61 Posts
Literally now "figuratively" means "figuratively", then, but must really mean "literally", but then... -_- | ||
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Bibdy
United States3481 Posts
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Disregard
China10252 Posts
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Kashll
United States1117 Posts
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TabyLing
Australia69 Posts
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. | ||
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Redmark
Canada2129 Posts
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.. | ||
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tube
United States1475 Posts
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TabyLing
Australia69 Posts
On September 21 2011 08:44 Redmark wrote: 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. | ||
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Chef
10810 Posts
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Aegisky
61 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + literally | ||
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atrocity3010
70 Posts
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Kid-Fox
Canada400 Posts
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... | ||
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Geovu
Estonia1344 Posts
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. | ||
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Rostam
United States2552 Posts
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Atreides-
United States103 Posts
I hate when people do this! | ||
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Archas
United States6531 Posts
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. Not that I advocate the alternate definition. | ||
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Jonoman92
United States9104 Posts
On September 21 2011 09:42 Aegisky wrote: Well-said, chef took the words right out of my mouth. + Show Spoiler + literally Obvious yet so good. This is so dumb it hurts... Stop ruinng English. | ||
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Sigh
Canada2433 Posts
I used to ALWAYS say literally with all kinds of exaggerations lol. Like " That test literally fisted me" or something | ||
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Mothra
United States1448 Posts
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Dalguno
United States2446 Posts
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Zeke50100
United States2220 Posts
It's just an incredibly liberal definition of exploded (this explanation works for almost everything). | ||
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Delerium
United States324 Posts
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? | ||
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TheAntZ
Israel6248 Posts
On September 21 2011 07:18 nttea wrote: This literally annoys the hell out of me. I wish people would stop doing that It annoys you so much it makes you regurgitate satans domain? swanky | ||
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Cuddle
Sweden1345 Posts
[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. | ||
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Cuddle
Sweden1345 Posts
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. | ||
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OpticalShot
Canada6330 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + There are lots of more misused words in the everyday-spoken English language (well, in every language probably) but for someone to go out there and define it... that's just a step too far. | ||
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