this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Former linguistics grad student here: The meaning of "literal" is changing, and sentences like "That guy is literally 500 years old" are correct.
Yes. Ling PhD here -- after teaching for 10+ years, the thing most people consistently do not understand about language is: the dictionary does not define what words mean. Dictionaries at best are a representation of what words meant at one time, and those meanings change quickly and pervasively enough that there is constantly a non-zero* number of words for which the dictionary is already wrong.
*in actuality it's probably significantly higher than what is connotated by "non-zero"
Yes, this is the excuse I use too when I mess up the pronunciation of a word and people have an issue with it. They understood the meaning so the communication was successful which is the point.
[Waves from the other hill] I will never accept that usage of "literal" as correct.
Sees you from a few hills away: Oh my gosh we’re literally right next to each other! 😜
As a fellow linguistics student here, completely agree. I randomly get those 'grammar nazis' like "doesnt that sort of stuff upset you?" like nahh man that stuff is fascinating! Don't lump me in with you, pleaseee.
I agree and will take it further. We don't even need to posit a change in the meaning of the word, we need only assume that when people use the word literally, they do not mean the word "literally" literally, they mean it figuratively.
Who says you have to use the word "literally" literally? You don't have to say the word "loudly" loudly!
So, what's the new word for what “literal” used to mean?
Deadass
Honestly, it’s also “literally”. Humans are complex lol.
Back when I was in grade school, there were kids saying "as long as you know what I mean, it doesn't matter". If a word means two different/conflicting things, how can we possibly know what you mean? See also: bimonthly.
Honestly, you're not wrong. As someone who cares a great deal about the accuracy of my communication, I always avoid the word "biweekly" at work for exactly this reason. It's just that...it's complicated. Language is essentially a really big democracy where meaning, structure, etc, are all constantly decided by everyone speaking it. If something becomes allowed by enough people, then it becomes de facto "correct", even if it muddies the system as a whole.
I prefer to take a very pragmatic approach to it all. (For my linguistics friends, I'm not using "pragmatic" in the technical sense.) In situations where communication is important or you don't know your audience well, I would advise people not to use "literally" in the non-literal sense. But if I were teaching English as a foreign language, I would absolutely teach this meaning of "literally" to an advanced learner. To not do so would be a disservice to them and potentially engender misunderstandings. (Whether I would teach something to an advanced second language learner is a good litmus test for whether something is linguistically "correct".)
The other thing (sorry for the long comment) is that humans are generally better at inferring meaning from context than we realize. For instance, I would be willing to bet that most people reading these two sentences pretty easily understand the intended meaning of the word "literally":
In both sentences, the topic of the sentence and the addition of the words / phrases like "oh my gosh" and "quite" go a long way to clarifying the intended meaning.
Also also: I just realized that my use of the word "drink" for "drink alcohol" is an unintentional second example of our ability to infer meaning from context.
And in each of those sentences, the word "literally" is wholly unnecessary. It can be omitted and the sentence would be more correct. The first would be a clear statement of opinion rather than (obviously un-) observed fact. There is some wiggle room for how technically correct the second one is, but when "literally" also means "metaphorically" the second sentence as written is even more vague -- additional context, e.g. the scientific knowledge of the speaker, is necessary.
@KidDogDad
@thrawn21
How, then, would somebody be able to convey that somebody is literally 500 years old?
Do people actually use it that way anymore though? I haven't heard anybody do it in a long time.
I hear it all the time in my circles.
Haha good point. Come to think of it I haven’t heard it in a while, but I’m also not exactly running in circles where it would be used frequently.
Yeah, I haven't heard anyone say it like that in literally, like, 500 years!