I looked up this controversy in some online dictionaries, where the consensus was that "literally" is conventionally used as an intensifier. The implication is that anyone who responds as rat does in the cartoon above is being churlish.
Just for fun, and to confirm that this is a modern deviation from the norm, I pulled my compact OED from the shelf and was surprised to find the following:
"Now often improperly used to indicate that some conventional or hyperbolical phrase is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense."
The OED cites a quote from 1863: "For the last four years... I literally coined money."
See also: Literally
Addendum: Just found this quote from 1813 (older than the OED one):
"The air," Audubon wrote later, "was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse."
He made that observation with regard to the now-legendary passenger pigeons. "When he visited their roost, the dung lay almost two inches deep for miles." (citations from this book)
David Cross hit on this in 2002
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ly1UTgiBXM
My pet peeve is when people use the word "like" five or ten times in a sentence and mean nothing at all by it. I suspect that this comes from not reading, people have no alternative phrases like you know?
ReplyDeleteIt seems "like" is replacing "umm" in spoken English. A filler so there's no break for someone to jump in.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoBruce
You should literally have titled this "Literally nobody takes "literally" literally".
ReplyDelete:-) You're quite correct. Title amended. Tx, Richard.
DeleteMy go-to words are LITERALLY and VIRTUALLY. Unless you REALLY died laughing, then you mean "I virtually died laughing." Or, metaphorically, "I died laughing."
ReplyDeleteI think taking everything literally is a far worse crime than using "literally" inappropriately.