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The 300-Year History of Using 'Literally' Figuratively
From https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-300-year-history-of-using-literally-figuratively.html
The 300-Year History of Using Literally Figuratively
SCIENCE OF US
JAN. 29, 2018
By Kory Stamper
An East Village bar recently got attention for its supposed ban on patrons who misuse the word literally.
As a lexicographer, I pay close attention to the latest linguistic scuttlebutt to erupt on social media. Last week introduced me to the Continental bar in the East Village, and owner Trigger Smiths screed against literally:
Folks love a good linguistic peeve, and the figurative or emphatic literally is a fan favorite. Its practically a rite of new-media passage to write a piece dismissing literally, and when someone discovered in 2013 that most American dictionaries entered a sense for literally that covered its figurative uses, lexicographers were inundated with angry emails and phone calls. Smith detailed his antipathy to Grub Street, and many emphatic literally naysayers likely nodded in agreement. Since its English, its probably happening in England, and maybe Australia [ ] I had a woman from Miami the other night tell me its happening down there, he says. And its not just millennials. Now you hear newscasters using literally every three minutes on the Sunday news shows.
The emphatic literally is not a millennial invention; it goes back to the 1700s at least, though Smith gets it right that its English. John Dryden, a man who is best known as the founder of literary criticism and the prohibition against the terminal preposition, was an early user of the emphatic literally. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace all used the emphatic literally in their works. Even Lindley Murray, 19th-century grammarian, uses the hyperbolic literally in his own grammar and he was such a peever that he thought children, along with animals, shouldnt be referred to with the pronoun who, as who conveys personhood, and only creatures with the ability to be rational are actually people.
We only began to take issue with the hyperbolic literally in the early 20th century. Ambrose Bierce called it intolerable, and usage maven H. W. Fowler said it should be repudiated. Dislike of the emphatic literally has become so prevalent that the word routinely shows up on lists of words that should be banned. Google Chrome users in particular no longer need suffer; they can download an extension for their browser that changes every instance of literally to figuratively.
...
SCIENCE OF US
JAN. 29, 2018
By Kory Stamper
An East Village bar recently got attention for its supposed ban on patrons who misuse the word literally.
As a lexicographer, I pay close attention to the latest linguistic scuttlebutt to erupt on social media. Last week introduced me to the Continental bar in the East Village, and owner Trigger Smiths screed against literally:
Link to tweet
Folks love a good linguistic peeve, and the figurative or emphatic literally is a fan favorite. Its practically a rite of new-media passage to write a piece dismissing literally, and when someone discovered in 2013 that most American dictionaries entered a sense for literally that covered its figurative uses, lexicographers were inundated with angry emails and phone calls. Smith detailed his antipathy to Grub Street, and many emphatic literally naysayers likely nodded in agreement. Since its English, its probably happening in England, and maybe Australia [ ] I had a woman from Miami the other night tell me its happening down there, he says. And its not just millennials. Now you hear newscasters using literally every three minutes on the Sunday news shows.
The emphatic literally is not a millennial invention; it goes back to the 1700s at least, though Smith gets it right that its English. John Dryden, a man who is best known as the founder of literary criticism and the prohibition against the terminal preposition, was an early user of the emphatic literally. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace all used the emphatic literally in their works. Even Lindley Murray, 19th-century grammarian, uses the hyperbolic literally in his own grammar and he was such a peever that he thought children, along with animals, shouldnt be referred to with the pronoun who, as who conveys personhood, and only creatures with the ability to be rational are actually people.
We only began to take issue with the hyperbolic literally in the early 20th century. Ambrose Bierce called it intolerable, and usage maven H. W. Fowler said it should be repudiated. Dislike of the emphatic literally has become so prevalent that the word routinely shows up on lists of words that should be banned. Google Chrome users in particular no longer need suffer; they can download an extension for their browser that changes every instance of literally to figuratively.
...
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The 300-Year History of Using 'Literally' Figuratively (Original Post)
sl8
Dec 2018
OP
AllaN01Bear
(18,384 posts)1. now you went and did it,
re watched a cartoon on youtube called conjunction junction. all these so called grammer nazis . humbug
Harker
(14,034 posts)2. When complaining about the word "literally"...
one might avoid using the word "actually."