Also, it’s funny how people always get their panties in a twist about “literally”, but never other autoantonyms like “cleave” or “sanction”.
It’s almost as if context does allow language to keep working when autoantonyms exist, and the prescriptivists’ snobbery and “concern” for the “purity” of the language is really just an excuse to lord their own adherence to an outdated and arbitrary set of rules over their interlocutors.
It can’t be used figuratively and retain any meaning.
It literally can, because context doesn’t come from words alone. This is the danger of only considering semantics without also considering pragmatics. Context can come from words, but it can also come from situations, body language, italics in writing, anywhere humans can discern meaning. Putting “literally” before a situation that you know from your world knowledge cannot possibly be true literally provides the context for interpreting “literally” as “figuratively”.
Check out the Gricean Maxims for more about this, specifically the “flouting maxims” section. Basically, if a person says something that doesn’t appear to be truthful under the most immediately apparent meaning, speakers automatically search for a context under which that interpretation becomes sensical. This is how hyperbole, irony, sarcasm, basically all uses of language that require interpretation beyond surface-level semantics, works.
In short, using “literally” this way is literally the same thing as telling your clumsy friend that their gracefulness is impressive after they slip and fall.
Also, “literally” has been used this way in English since at least the 1700s, by writers like Fitzgerald, Joyce, Bronte, and Dickens, to name a few, and it’s in literally all major dictionaries (not that that should matter, but you seem the type that would be important to).
Most importantly, though, people use it productively in fluent speech, which is literally the only reasonable (and objective) measurement of what is and is not grammatical for a given speaker.
This comment is literally correct, and all of the responses to it are literally /c/badlinguistics, so of course this comment is the one that gets downvoted.
Context is the difference. If you’re one of the people who can’t understand hyperbole and saracsm and such, you’ll just have to take my word for it I guess.
If you’re one of the people who can’t understand hyperbole and saracsm and such
I understand it just fine.
The problem is that the word “literally” is supposed to mean “without hyperbole or sarcasm”. So when you use it to emphasize hyperbole or sarcasm, you’re making the word meaningless.
the word “literally” is supposed to mean “without hyperbole or sarcasm”
According to what objective standard? Good luck finding one outside of maaaybe special-use technical jargon. Here’s the literal dictionary’s take on it, if you’d prefer to go that direction with the conversation.
Words mean what their speakers fluently use them to mean - anything else is just linguistic snobbery masquerading as concern.
When you say someone is literally as tall as a mountain, that literally means that they would be at least 2,000 feet tall.
Yes. In that case it’s not used as a hyperbole.
Right, so “literally” indicates that the statement is not a hyperbole.
Not always. When I say my head literally exploded, the word “literally” absolutely is a hyperbole.
That defeats the purpose of the word. It makes it mean literally nothing.
That’s not how language works.
Also, it’s funny how people always get their panties in a twist about “literally”, but never other autoantonyms like “cleave” or “sanction”.
It’s almost as if context does allow language to keep working when autoantonyms exist, and the prescriptivists’ snobbery and “concern” for the “purity” of the language is really just an excuse to lord their own adherence to an outdated and arbitrary set of rules over their interlocutors.
Your other two examples you can get from context.
The purpose of “literally” is to define the context. It can’t be used figuratively and retain any meaning.
It literally can, because context doesn’t come from words alone. This is the danger of only considering semantics without also considering pragmatics. Context can come from words, but it can also come from situations, body language, italics in writing, anywhere humans can discern meaning. Putting “literally” before a situation that you know from your world knowledge cannot possibly be true literally provides the context for interpreting “literally” as “figuratively”.
Check out the Gricean Maxims for more about this, specifically the “flouting maxims” section. Basically, if a person says something that doesn’t appear to be truthful under the most immediately apparent meaning, speakers automatically search for a context under which that interpretation becomes sensical. This is how hyperbole, irony, sarcasm, basically all uses of language that require interpretation beyond surface-level semantics, works.
In short, using “literally” this way is literally the same thing as telling your clumsy friend that their gracefulness is impressive after they slip and fall.
Also, “literally” has been used this way in English since at least the 1700s, by writers like Fitzgerald, Joyce, Bronte, and Dickens, to name a few, and it’s in literally all major dictionaries (not that that should matter, but you seem the type that would be important to).
Most importantly, though, people use it productively in fluent speech, which is literally the only reasonable (and objective) measurement of what is and is not grammatical for a given speaker.
This comment is literally correct, and all of the responses to it are literally /c/badlinguistics, so of course this comment is the one that gets downvoted.
They angry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s literally no difference in the usage.
Context is the difference. If you’re one of the people who can’t understand hyperbole and saracsm and such, you’ll just have to take my word for it I guess.
I understand it just fine.
The problem is that the word “literally” is supposed to mean “without hyperbole or sarcasm”. So when you use it to emphasize hyperbole or sarcasm, you’re making the word meaningless.
According to what objective standard? Good luck finding one outside of maaaybe special-use technical jargon. Here’s the literal dictionary’s take on it, if you’d prefer to go that direction with the conversation.
Words mean what their speakers fluently use them to mean - anything else is just linguistic snobbery masquerading as concern.
There’s literally no difference in context between those two examples. You’re literally just making up the rules.