Article

According to the dictionary, “literally” now also means “figuratively”
Thanks in part to the overuse of "literally," Merriam-Webster says the word can now mean its exact opposite. Huh?

But people increasingly use “literally” to give extreme emphasis to a statement that cannot be true, as in: “My head literally exploded when I read Merriam-Webster, among others, is now sanctioning the use of literally to mean just the opposite.”

EDIT! So many people, so many with two different opinions. Isn't there anyone else out there, like me, who is just happy sitting here and watching the world burn after reading a change in the dictionary that's worded in a vaguely amusing fashion?

4669611

So once more the world bends over backwards to accommodate the lowest common denominator.
Rather than let us continue being smart and reminding people 'you're using that word wrong dumbass', we're going to change the meaning of the word to suit the ignorant and the stupid so that they don't seem as ignorant or stupid as they really are.
While we're at it, why don't we just outlaw school in general? There's really no point to it anymore, is there?

Keep in mind I'm guilty of using the word wrong myself, but I acknowledge that it's stupid at least.

4669611 Please tell me this is a joke...

At least it sounds like the Oxford dictionary is remaining pure.

4669611
As it should be.

Dictionaries are not sacred tomes that dictate our speech. Dictionaries are collections of human-created words and the meanings that humans assign to them. If it becomes common practice to use a definition for a word that wasn't previously in the dictionary, it's the dictionary's job to change to better reflect the language it's cataloging.

I will never understand the hubbub about literally being used "wrong." Languages change. Words change. Stop valuing "rules" over human communication—a.k.a., the purpose of language.

Relax people, this is how language works. It's not like math where words have an objectively "correct" meaning. If enough people use a word a certain way, that's what its meaning becomes. This has happened many times in English in the past, and will happen many times in the future as well. "Awful" originally meant "full of awe", and I'm sure the literati of the 19th century were equally horrified that the "lowest common denominator" was starting to use it as a synonym for "terrible."

English changes over time (as do all living languages), and most of the changes don't make any sense. That's just how it is; it's how it's always been.

4669629

Well said. Here, have a clapping librarian:

4669611
I don't see much of a problem. Simply put, sizing up someone's intelligence based on word choice is ludicrous; I've met many highly intelligent people that use "literally" in the wrong sense, and they are still light years more intelligent than me. Language evolves, and that's that. If people can't evolve with it, then there's not much else that can be said.

4669625

George Orwell's 1984.

It's all slowly coming true.

4669629
Doesn't change the fact this use of the word is completely retarded

Yes, yes, I know it's fun to complain about kids these days killing the English language and whatnot, but the language does change over time and if the dictionary is to stay relevant it needs to change too.

4669629

4669625
>So once more the world bends over backwards to accommodate the lowest common denominator.
>we're going to change the meaning of the word to suit the ignorant and the stupid so that they don't seem as ignorant or stupid as they really are.
>While we're at it, why don't we just outlaw school in general? There's really no point to it anymore, is there?

4669634 Just look at the at smug bitch go.

4669661

You want her.

4669667 I do though, I do.

4669669

Who doesn't?

4669611

Lots of words mean the opposite of what they used to mean.

For example: "A moot point" originally meant something that needs to be discussed in great detail.

4669676
Yep. In fact here's two lists of words that used to mean very different things:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/words-that-used-to-mean-something-different/bully.html
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54770/15-words-dont-mean-what-they-used

4669685
...I think my nerdity has reached a new pinnacle, given how excited I was to learn about new bits of etymology.

Fun links, though!

Language is meant to be fluid, not bargained off to the lowest common denominator. What's next? Lose supplanted with loose because half of you can't spell?

Here's a frank reminder:

4669705

Right. And HERE is the response of actual real linguists, specialists of the English language, to that song.

(spoilers: they hate it)

4669713
Got something more comprehensive than a political blog? There's a difference between political journalists and other writers.

Also, what kind of linguists are they? Linguistics is a wide field with specialties and subspecialties, and not always the twain shall meet.

4669726

Sure. Although I'll note that the guy who wrote that first article is a linguistics professor.

But okay, here's more from Language Log (University of Pennsylvania). Here's Grammar Girl (just an English major, but quite passionate about English, and rather looked-up-to in educating people about grammar). Dictionary.com.

This isn't really something linguists are divided on. Prescriptivism (the idea that people should speak/write a certain way) used to be an idea in linguistics, but it fell by the wayside around the 80s, because it became obvious that it just wasn't a useful way of looking at language. English simply doesn't work like that, and saying that the meaning of a word should stay static is kind of seen as... silly, like saying that birds should have four legs. It doesn't happen that way, and there's no good reason why it should.

4669752
Okay, that I'll accept. Thanks.

4669629

I'll accept that train of thought when the definition of hung is changed to include the definition of hanged and effect and affect become interchangeable.

4669754

You... will? Huh. Well, this the first time I've seen that happen on this particular subject. People usually just kinda keep on keepin' on, despite everything.

Kudos for being open-minded.

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4669625

Well, language is an extremely fluid concept. There is nothing static about it. People made up certain pitches and vibrations with their throats, mouths, and tongues, and then decided to attach those specific sounds to objects and concepts so that they could be communicated. Language is always changing, you can either keep up with it, or literally be left behind. (I mean that figuratively, but you know that.)

I often embrace language changing and evolving, but a word meaning two completely opposite things is just going to make things confusing. More confusing than it is already, I mean. When I say that someone was literally chained to the wall, now I'm going to have to explain that there were physical chains involved, which defeats the purpose of me even using the word. Well, I guess we're going to need a new word for things that are literal, then. Oh crap, are we going to need a new word for "literal", too?

4669779

You'd be surprised how many words like that there already are! They're called auto-antonyms: words that are their own antonyms (opposites). I think they're very interesting! Here's a list.

4669629

Dictionaries are not sacred tomes that dictate our speech. Dictionaries are collections of human-created words and the meanings that humans assign to them.

So in other words changing the language to suit stupid people who can't be bothered to use the words right is a good thing. We're not talking about evolution, we're talking about a word's meaning literally (in the original sense) being pointless, because it no longer means 'literally'. This isn't evolution of language, it's trivialization thereof.

If it becomes common practice to use a definition for a word that wasn't previously in the dictionary, it's the dictionary's job to change to better reflect the language it's cataloging.

Yes, but 'literally' was in the dictionary, and it had a meaning. Once more, this isn't just giving the word a knew meaning, this is giving it a meaning that contradicts its original meaning.

I will never understand the hubbub about literally being used "wrong." Languages change. Words change. Stop valuing "rules" over human communication—a.k.a., the purpose of language.

You do realize we're talking not trivializing the meaning of a word right? Communication is lost here, because now that word has two contradicting meanings; not just different meanings, but two that actively oppose one another. If the language kept 'evolving' that way, then there'd really be no point to a dictionary. East and West? Who actually owns a compass? Up and Down? Why separate them? This is basically language killing itself.

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This isn't evolution of language, it's trivialization thereof.

You're holding the English language as it is now to be some kind of pure and untarnished thing.

You are wrong to do so. The English language has been undergoing this process for as long as there has been an English language. And the root languages that English evolved from where undergoing the same process. And the languages that those evolved from were doing the same thing.

Here, do you recognize this:

"Take white Pigeons, and fatten them with Pyneapple kernelles, the space of xv daies, and than kil them: and having cast away the head, the feete, and the guttes, with all the garbage, distill them in a limbecke ..." – Girolamo Ruscelli (translated by W. Warde), The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount, 1558

It's from Raine's links.

What you speak every day is a 'trivialized' (as you put it), version of that.
You are speaking in some kind of abominable, 'incorrect' and sullied version of that English. Fifty thousand trivializations removed. Why is our version so pure and noble? Why is some future English so destroyed, when we once were that hypothetical future, to previous English speakers?

4669657
I don't think you understand how the evolution of language occurs.
We're talking about a word being made to be able to self contradict. It is literally (in the original sense) turning a word into a paradox, because it is both fact and figurative.

4669789 4669786 English isn't even a pure and untarnished language in the first place. Never mind 2015's version of it.
It's a deformed hybrid of a whole bunch of European languages all fused into one being.
It's been impure since day one.

4669783
I was aware of some of those, but there are quite a few I wasn't aware of. Still, it doesn't make it right or good. It just makes the problem worse when we add more to that list. I guess that we just have to rely on context to figure out which "literally" is being used. Sometimes, I really hate English. I get that the language needs to change to suit the world and not the other way around, but English is a mess because of stuff like this (and other factors). I guess that's just the way it goes, though. No use complaining. In a few decades, nobody will remember that "literally" used to literally mean literally. I wonder what word people will use to mean that...

If they use "figuratively", I will literally eat my hat. And by "literally", I mean "figuratively".

4669776
We're talking not about the evolution of language, but the removal of its meaning. What's the point if a word can mean anything? This is the sort of thing that begets smurf-speak. I mean, I smurfing smurf everytime I smurf comments like these, because it smurfs me that there are smurfs out there who don't even smurf.

That is literally (original meaning) the kind of direction this transition takes.

4669796
Oh I agree wholeheartedly. But we're clearly not done mutilating the language are we? We want it to be utterly pointless. If words could mean both their meanings and their opposites, what's the point of language? The most basic form of communication is 'yes' and 'no' - what would happen if those two words could mean the same thing?

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If we were 50's Star Trek computer AIs, we might be in trouble with 'paradox'. As it is, we won't actually hit a fatal error and shut down our brains. You probably use dozens of words every day that can have vastly different meanings and provide far different ideas based on the context and tone they're used in.

This one is no different. Used in normal or formal conversation, you'll understand it to be the original usage. Used in melodramatic or grandiose or less serious language, you'll understand that it's just hyperbole.

English is full of paradox and ambiguity. It can be a hard language to learn as a result. But it also gives a lot of strength. There is no better language to use on the face of the planet for dealing with difficult to conceptualize or contradictory ideas. If you really want to illogically bend that brain (I don't mean physically bend!? Blasphemy!)? We're the last word.

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["Take white Pigeons, and fatten them with Pyneapple kernelles, the space of xv daies, and than kil them: and having cast away the head, the feete, and the guttes, with all the garbage, distill them in a limbecke ..." – Girolamo Ruscelli (translated by W. Warde), The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount, 1558

Well, of course I know what that is. The only thing that throws me off is if it's a medical recipe or a culinary one, since you don't usually make soup of broth in a limbeck.

However, if "literally" now means "figuratively," what's in the place of "literally?" It bothers me less in casual speech, where I can ask for a clarification, but if someone says, "I literally fell over, I was so tired," I don't know how worried to be. Yes, language evolves, but this will be confusing.

4669779 Basically, this.

Anyway, I ain't accepting this until and unless the Oxford does, and maybe not even then. There are no split infinitives in written communication while I'm around. Spoken conversation, and even, arguably, web forums, are a different matter.

4669804
I'm not a fan of it either. I like the word literally. But somehow we'll all manage. And one use or the other will fall out of favor. And another word may come to be used for the same idea. Much like how Fervidor's 'Moot Point' example came to mean its opposite. Where we once would have said 'that's a moot point'. We now would say something like 'That's debatable'.

PonyTom is riding the most hysterical bleeding edge of a slippery slope argument. That somehow these changes will make language useless, and we'll exist in some babbling state, making incomprehensible sounds at one another. All in clear violation to the obvious point that, despite this process happening since the start of human language, we aren't babbling yet. And shows no sign of happening. And we all understand one another just fine.

And I feel a need to point that out the silliness.

4669800

That is literally (original meaning) the kind of direction this transition takes.

Well, since this dictionary change does not literally replace every word with "smurf," it would seem that you're using the new meaning instead. After all, the new sense of the word is made for bombastic hyperbole like what you're engaging in.

Edit: oh shit I just noticed this part

The most basic form of communication is 'yes' and 'no' - what would happen if those two words could mean the same thing?

"Hey, Pinkie, could I borrow your mixing bowl?" asks Twilight.

Pinkie has no objection to this. She can respond two ways:

* "Nope! Go ahead and take it!"
* "Sure! Go ahead and take it!"

I have heard both variants in real life. "Yes" and "no" already mean the same thing--in certain contexts. And so it is with "literally." You are not going to hear "literally Nazis" in formal speech or writing unless the topic of discussion is literal Nazis. Do not worry. We are not going to descend into anarchy.

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Every living language is a mess. That's what makes them interesting! The only languages that are totally logical are artificial ones, like Esperanto or Hymmnos.

You just gotta see it as a lovable mess instead of an annoying one, is all.

4669800

But the word "literally" doesn't mean just anything, it still has specific outlines.

lit·er·al·ly
ˈlidərəlē,ˈlitrəlē/
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
"the driver took it literally when asked to go straight across the traffic circle"
synonyms: exactly, precisely, actually, really, truly.

informal
used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.
"I have received literally thousands of letters"

So it does seem that you are upset by the dynamics of the word's alteration in its definition. It appears to me that you percieved its previous connotation contained a plethora of concise and duly accurate validity in its import. However, this would make your disgruntled rebuttal, somewhat subjective and opinionated rather than empirically founded.

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PonyTom is riding the most hysterical bleeding edge of a slippery slope argument. That somehow these changes will make language useless, and we'll exist in some babbling state, making incomprehensible sounds at one another.

The first stone in the Tower of Babel will literally be the the new definition of literal.

4669804

but if someone says, "I literally fell over, I was so tired," I don't know how worried to be. Yes, language evolves, but this will be confusing.

Just gotta hope that people are smart enough to avoid using figures of speech when they're things that could actually have happened.

4669786

Yes, but 'literally' was in the dictionary, and it had a meaning. Once more, this isn't just giving the word a knew meaning, this is giving it a meaning that contradicts its original meaning.

This whole argument can be traced to one problem: You don't understand what a dictionary is. There are prescriptive documents that tell people what to do, and descriptive documents which only track what already is. A dictionary is descriptive in nature, not prescriptive. ‘Literally’ didn't have a meaning because it was in a dictionary; it had a meaning because of its use, and the dictionary documented - described- the use that the word already had. When a dictionary updates, it isn't ‘giving the word a new meaning’, it is acknowledging a meaning already present in the language.

In essence, you are getting mad at dictionaries for doing their job.

4669611
Unsuccessfully tried tracking down that one pertinent clip from How I Met your Mother:

Robin: You correct me one more time and I'm literally gonna rip your head off, Ted!

Ted: I think you mean 'figurati-

Robin: NO, I MEAN 'LITERALLY'!!

When you see italics and other people's comments being analysed by others in a comments section, you know that it has become a warzone, literally...

And I'll be the first one to get into cover

I am literally being literal here, This is literally the worst possible thing. I couldn't be more literal if i tried. maybe, with literally now meaning not literally I can literally be illiterate and literate, that this has become a paradox makes me literally happy from all the trolling potential.

4669879

Cover won't help, in this pony's war!

4669611 But if everything is literal, how do we know which literal is literally literal?

4669894

Is it safe?

—One millisecond, later—

Nopenopenope, nothing is gonna get me to come out of here, I'm pretty sure I'm safer in this bush thank you very much...

4669908

Is it safe?