funeralxempire wrote:
dragonsanddemons wrote:
It perplexes me that so many people have accepted the use of the word “literally” as the opposite of the actual definition that I now have to be aware that because I use it for emphasis, people are likely to assume that’s how I’m using it. I always mean literally literally, just like adding, well, “always” or some such.
It wouldn't be the first time a word had essentially flipped in meaning.
Condescend is another one.
People using literally in that way are using it ironically, at least if they're aware of the correct meaning.
It's some
bad English as the kids say, bad meaning good in this context. I think. Unless they mean it's literally bad English. Wait, I'm confused.
I was under the impression that a significant number of people
don’t deliberately do it to be ironic or sarcastic or anything, but I could very easily be wrong. Or maybe it stemmed from people who were, and a few other people didn’t realize that and incorrectly inferred the meaning and started unintentionally misusing it, and then others picked it up from them, and so on.
Whatever it is, I don’t like having to change my vocabulary because of it.
_________________
Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"