The Wrong Definition Of “Literally” Is Literally Going In The Dictionary
This is figuratively the worst thing ever.
1. “Literally” technically means “without exaggeration,” as in “this thing ACTUALLY happened.”
2. But these days some people use it just for emphasis.
5. Wrong:
7. But since more and more people are using the wrong “literally,” dictionaries are starting to add the wrong definition to their entries for “literally.”
Like the Oxford Dictionary.
9. And even Google!!
10. Is this a brave new world where we can use “literally” as a mere intensifier?
11. Or should we try to keep “literally” literally the same?
Thanks to GalleyCat and Reddit for pointing this out.
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- ashleym29 thinks The Wrong Definition Of "Literally" I... is Win
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likehesaiddotdotdot a week agoanyone who misinterperets the factual usage or misdefines or otherwise misrepresents the word “literally” into a definiton other than the ‘real’ one meaning ‘actually’ or ‘in a literal, or real sense’; may as well be trying to do the same thing as bastardizing the necessary and cornerstone concreteness of such constructs in the English language as “singular” and change that definition to mean ‘plural’ or ‘multiplicative’. What I’m stating, is that distorting, or warping the concrete definition of cornerstone or keystone constructs of the language such as “literally” or “singular” or “plural” or “fact” or “fiction” or the hogwash when people confuse “idea” with the completely seperate word (and concept) “ideal” it can (and eventually will) cause the whole house of cards (or scaffolding propping up) this language to fall down and come flying apart at the seams. “truly”.
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- oliverjdarling The Wrong Definition Of "Literally" I...
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oliverjdarling 2 weeks ago
It’s nice that everyone’s upset about this, but pretty much every other language has intensifier words. For example, German has words like “doch” and “ja” which have no translation into English in most cases. They’re just there to intensify. They’re natural. They communicate a feeling that would otherwise be absent from written language. How else does one intensify things in written English?
It’s not a wrong definition, just a new one. The modern English pronoun “they” used to be much closer to “he” and over time, that changed. The word “silly” took on new meanings. It’s natural, it’s just that people have had a conservative notion of grammar drummed into your heads since day one. If you truly have a problem with creation and reinterpretation of words, you should not be using words like “google” as a verb, nor should the word “blog” exist in your vocabulary.
Much love,
a linguistics major. -
- etchasketch91 The Wrong Definition Of "Literally" I...
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mirandah7 a month agoThis usage is actually a famous milestone in literature. At the beginning of the great short story The Dead in Dubliners, James Joyce opens with the line “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet.” That’s not true, of course, but it’s the kind of mistaken usage the character Lily might have used. Some Joyce scholars (Hugh Kenner) mark mark this as at least signaling the point when Joyce started altering the voice of the narrator in his fiction to reflect the vocabulary, usage, and knowledge of the characters, with the narrator’s voice shifting as the focus of the narrator moves from character to character. So while literally incorrect, one might say that it is literarily correct.
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Rational Human 2 months agoDoing this is wrong for a multitude of reasons. Language should conform to Dictionary definitions, not vice versa. Poor communication causes innumerable problems.
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- annn2 thinks The Wrong Definition Of "Literally" I... is Fail
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christiang17 2 months agoARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME THE TWO DEFINITIONS OF “LITERALLY” CONTRADICT EACH OTHER THIS IS NOT OKAY THIS IS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS SO HARD TO LEARN
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Sandafluffoid 2 months ago
As a linguistic all the butthurt in these comments makes me sad. This kind of change has been happening for millenia to English and every other language. We won’t lose any ability to express ourselves, our language won’t get ‘worse’, it’ll just change. Seriously, this shouldn’t be a thing.
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- faeriebell thinks The Wrong Definition Of "Literally" I... is Fail
- ellimac21 The Wrong Definition Of "Literally" I...
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catherinec4 2 months agoHonestly, I think that this transformation is part of the evolution of the English language and we should therefore embrace it! It, literally, is not that big of a deal :)
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johnec 2 months agoThis is the sad result of our education system. Now the ignorant masses are unknowingly (of course, they are ignorant) using words incorrectly and slowly changing our language until it we will need completely new words to replace ones we had, but that were misused into oblivion. This is assuming we don’t dumb ourselves down to third world status. Literally
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- nopej added Cotton Eye Joe to the mix about 2 months ago
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gcs3 2 months ago
Waa waa waa why don’t you literally cry me a river? Languages evolve. Get over it. Using literally in this manner is a stylistic device to highlight the absurdity of the literal meaning of some expression. It’s commonly used in this manner for a few hundred years I believe. Literally.
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katy the kid 2 months agoI heard a lady on the patio talking about a nanny job for an unruly child. She said she “literally ripped his head off.” I called the cops.
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Ellie Fountain 2 months ago
Oh man. I literally laughed myself to death. I’m writing this comment from the grave. Siriusly.
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okapimania 2 months ago
So are people just upset about this because they literally cannot tell from the context when someone is using the term “literally” literally?
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