• stoicmaverick@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Hi. Third party here. They’re correct: that’s literally not what literally means. Ok thanks bye.

    • Glytch@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Fourth party here: definitions are descriptive not prescriptive and vary by common usage. Due to current common usage, literally means both literally and figuratively, with the original definition slowly losing ground. So no one is correct.

      • stoicmaverick@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        True, but if you wanted to articulate the concept formerly known as “Literally”, how would you do it? I just woke up, and my brain hasn’t booted all the way to desktop yet, but I can’t immediately think of another word to fill the niche.

        • Glytch@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          The closest I can come is “genuinely” but the connotations don’t quite fit for all uses.

        • Glytch@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Depends on how many survive, but I don’t see what that has to do with linguistics.

      • SmokeyDope@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        But is it a figurative burying or a meta-literal one? I mean if you really think about things entomologically and we pick apart the Latin root words of “bury” and “dogpile” we might just find that the meaning of lemmy dogpile changes completely depending on context, literally figuratively.

        Language is fucked. We really need telepathically beaming abstract concepts directly into brain matter so I don’t have to crawl through linguist brainrot reply chains.