Why people use the word “literally” incorrectly
I just noticed that a commenter here has used the word “literally” incorrectly in a recent thread. I won’t call attention to who it was; the error is so common that it pretty much could have been anyone.
But why is this particular error so very common? Why do otherwise erudite and grammatically correct people sometimes slip up on its correct use?
One reason is that the word has a somewhat counter-intuitive meaning, or at least a counter-intuitive penumbra. “Literally” is the opposite of “metaphorically”—“literally” means actually, in cold hard literal fact. However (and this is the point), the word “literally” also somewhat sounds as though it might mean something like “in literature; in the literary sense.” In other words, metaphorically. I think that is the first confusion that might throw people off.
The second confusion arises from people’s desire to add emphasis to a point they are making (see, I did it just then with italics, a device I tend to overuse). How to emphasize something? You can use a word such as “really,” but that sounds sort of weak. Literally somehow manages to sound like an even stronger version of “really.” Only trouble, is, that’s not what it means at all.
Literally.
Yes, it has developed a second meaning as a mere intensifier over the last century. Annoying, of course, as it forces people who were taught that a particular usage is correct to adjust their ears to the change. Worse, those who use literally in what used to be its only valid meaning have to find other ways to cue the listener/reader what their precise meaning is.
When words are expanding in meaning, drawing attention to the older precision can be done with an eyebrow or change of tone. As it escapes beyond the fences further, we have to resort to italics or greater volume. Eventually, phrases and repetitions have to be used, e. g ” – and I do mean literally.” All very irritating and tedious, but it is what has been happening to languages since they were first invented.
Words can contract in meaning as well, as a broad term can narrow to refer to one part or one type, e.g. skyline used to refer to any horizon but now refers exclusively to a metropolitan profile.
I impulsively used it myself just the other day, to indeed add emphasis. As likely as not, unnecessarily.
Let us play then . . .
. . . letterally where the thing (word) is taken letter by letter, one by one.
So not to say, by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea — littorally.
Actually, you could use the word “actually” which I actually do … too much actually.
I don’t know if I am the offender you’re referring to, neo, but I’ll confess to having used the word here recently, but I always use it to mean actual, true, factual – as opposed to figurative. I don’t recall ever using it strictly to emphasize something that’s obviously less than true.
I agree with the second explanation. People use the word as a flavoring particle, a bad habit that I fall into myself with other words.
P.S. It annoys me that you never hear anyone say “…and he METAPHORICALLY died of embarassment!”
Neo:
A few(?) months ago, I had a problem reading comments. Nothing would show up until the day after your post. In other words, tomorrow I’ll be able to read the comments to this post, but right now, I’m literally flying blind (ha ha). Last time this happened, the problem went away after a week or so. As far as I know, you didn’t do any technical tinkering on your end, but I thought you’d like to know.
As I write this, seven comments have been added to your post. If I’m repeating someone, please accept my apologies.
A few years ago, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) recognized the contemporary use of the word, a use that had been thought to be misuse.
Oxford Dictionaries has a blog, and someone wrote a post about the newly accepted(?) double meaning of “literally.”
Here’s a link:
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/08/literally/
I have to say that I remain unconvinced. The Oxford blog notes that many words have different meanings, and who would ever deny such a thing? But accepting both meanings of “literally,” not only (literally?) flies in the face of logic, it sounds silly and tin-eared. Why is this? I think it’s because the two meanings are contradictory. Very few English words have contradictory meanings. Aside from the slapstick potential, expanding the meaning of “literally” adds to the world’s confusion and ambiguity, and reduces its precision. Beyond politicians, who wants that?
Anyway, if you use google to search for other people writing about the OED’s new recognition of “literally’s” double meaning, then you’ll see that this has caused quite a kerfuffle.
Maybe you can help me figure out whether the duck who lives with my cousins chickens is literally transspecies. His egg was abandoned by his mother in the creek that is literally 10 feet from the chicken yard. He was hatched by one of the chickens and decided to remain with them despite the fact that he could easily escape back into the creek where his relatives swim by regularly. I haven’t checked for position papers from the LGBT community on transpecieism, so I don’t know where I stand on whether he is literally a chicken.
I long for a simpler life when you could look in a dictionary to find such answers.
expat:
That’s pretty funny.
Your cousin’s duck, of course, has been imprinted. Of course, it doesn’t answer your question. My guess is that the duck doesn’t feel that it’s a chicken, it feels that the chickens are actually ducks.
Cornflour:
Sorry to hear you’re still heaving comment problems. Back when you first had them there were quite a few people who reported similar difficulties, but lately it seems that for most if not all of the rest of them the problem has cleared up.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what’s creating the problem for you, but I hope it resolves.
neo,
I wish he could talk and tell me about his feelings.
I could write this off as a fad word, but it does parallel a sickness in our society. We’re in a time of trolling, of contempt for the truth, of post-modernism. We don’t care if something is true as long as it supports our position. If we can’t make the distinction between the real and the imagined, it’s inevitable that we’d begin to use the word “literally” to mean the opposite.
expat:
Well, if you can imagine he can talk and what his feelings might be, isn’t that just as good? 🙂
Aren’t those Lorenz films great, though?
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but hangs out with chickens, it’s …, questioning?
The word “literally” is now used mainly as an intensifier. It’s in the dictionary and will stay there. Much more worrisome are the following:
I should have went. (growing more and more common)
He spoke to my friend and I. (very common)
He has less problems than he used to. (very common)
If I would have known, I would have gone. (very common)
The almost universal use of “despise” as a synonym for “hate.”
neo,
Yes, the films are great. I don’t think I could cope with any more animals than my one cat. And she doesn’t follow me around; she leads me. Maybe I am the one who has been imprinted.
When reading Cornflour my mental wheels started turning, with but small result, but I thought of one word which contains opposite senses: to cleave. It can mean to split (with a forceful sense!) or to cling (a bit more dated, hymns for example). There’s another unusual pairing of words, too. Here the words are synonyms in fact, but look like antonyms. An example is flammable and inflammable. They both mean burnable, where another parallel construction, edible and inedible mean quite the opposite. Historical reasons, perhaps. To the OED soon!
Shall we talk about “decimate” – it literally means 1 in 10.
neo (and fellow denizens of this blog),
I am really, really, *really* pleased that this long-standing abuse of the word “literally” is being brought to the attention of those who read neo’s posts.
You might say I’m literally gruntled — then again, you might not.
Yep, it definitely has come to be used as an intensifier, the irony being that “literally” is now used somewhat metaphorically – meaning something like, “not literally literally, but totally, completely x.”
I never used the word much, but I bet I’ve made the mistake before, like, literally a million times (that’s also a very common turn of phrase, to add “like” before “literally,” further accentuating the metaphorical usage of the term. Also: no one seems to bother ditingsuishing between similes and metaphors anymore – every comparison that is not an analogy is just a metaphor).
Like DNW I tend to use “actually.” Overuse it, actually. I also overuse “just:”. “I think it’s just dumb how these kids just don’t care….”. Where someone might say, “he’s literally a baby,” I would tend to say, “he’s just being a baby.” Or: “it’s literally moronic” – I’d tend to say, “it’s just moronic.”
I always have to go back and edit things I write to take out the overuse of “just” in that intensifying sense. Actually, I like literally just can’t help myself.
As the first comment notes, this happens to words in languages, literally, all the time.
It’s a natural evolution of language.
A few people still use hopefully in only its older meaning and usage, but its a losing battle.
How many people here use awful in only or even primarily its original sense of “worthy of respect or fear”?
How about an article on the correct use of the word “momentary” which is misused all the time?
Working at a bookstore. Yesterday I found a like-new “The Great Gatsby” amid incoming, and as I was taking it to the store for shelving, I opened it up and found myself looking at a use of literally as intensifier. I didn’t have time to make a note of the chapter and page in this edition, but I showed it to a co worker who was as surprised as I was. Perhaps a Gatsby fan out there knows the passage I’m referring to.
BrianB,
Awful had been replaced by awesome, but now the kids are working on that too. I don’t think they know what respect or fear are.
Terrific used to mean terrifying, a parallel of horrific. Jefferson still used it in that sense.
‘Why people use the word “literally” incorrectly’
Because they are using it metaphorically?
That would be ironic.
The debate over whether dictionaries should be prescriptive or descriptive ended fifty years ago. (I recommend The Story of Ain’t on that subject.) There is nothing to be convinced or not convinced about in terms of what any dictionary will tell you about correctness. It won’t. They don’t do that anymore, not for decades. Those of us who are older were educated by schoolteachers trained in the 1910’s-50’s when many dictionaries did weigh in on what is correct. They passed that on to us as The Truth, and we still cling to it.
Correctness of usage has always been situational, but that is much more true now. If you seek for an authority to back you up on usage, you can refer to the Manuals of Style – but those have always been political and that will only increase going forward. Notice, for example, that our legacy media news sources report on the controversy about use of pronouns for transgendered people, and one can tell by their tone that they are beginning to side with the “trans community*” – but they don’t change the pronouns in their own writing. Ironic, and unstable.
*There is no community. It’s just one of those words that deceive by making it sound like there are more people in it.
Neo said:
“Sorry to hear you’re still heaving comment problems.”
Oooh, that must really clog up the spam filter…
But, back on topic. The widespread misuse of ‘begging the question’ has *literally* removed a very useful concept from our discourse. Can anybody suggest a replacement for that phrase?
I think I have switched to “assuming what you are claiming to prove.” That’s much less fun to say, isn’t it? I may also use the phrase “circular reasoning.” I don’t think I have settled on a substitute.
Now that I look at this, I don’t see where the “begging” part comes in, unless it is a shortened form of “begs off the question.” I’ll check the SOED when I get home, but that may not have that full history.
Go search on YouTube for “Studio C” and Captain Literally. Some excellent sketches, including him confronting the OED about including contradictory definitions. 🙂
My 9-year-old son wants to be Captain Literally one of these Halloweens.