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Now I don't normally get to pedantic about English, grammar etc but this one[^] particularly gets on my tits. Both the wrong usage of it and the fact it is now going in the Dictionary because people can't use it properly.
What do others think of this?
To give an example 'This literally made my blood boil" and "I was literally climbing the ceiling".
I mean if literally means not literally then how can we emphasise that "We literally shat ourselves" for example. I'm off home as this has wound me up.
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PB 369,783 wrote: as this has wound me up.
To literally lick your wounds?
Marc
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I didn't know the past tense of sh*t was shat. I suppose shitted doesn't sound quite right either.
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I used to get excited about such blatant corruption, but now that the number of people too lazy or ignorant to use their own native language correctly far exceeds the number of us who care, it hardly seems worth the effort. Let them drown in their stupidity... 
Will Rogers never met me.
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Roger Wright wrote: I used to get excited about such blatant corruption, but now that the number of people too lazy or ignorant to use their own native language correctly far exceeds the number of us who care, it hardly seems worth the effort. Let them drown in their stupidity... I literally don't care anymore
FTFY 
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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Roger Wright wrote: , but now that the number of people too lazy or ignorant to use their own native
language correctly far exceeds the number of us who care
So exactly when was the reverse true? What year would that have been?
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Virtually, like literally never!
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Roger Wright wrote: it hardly seems worth the effort.
So you're too lazy to care?
I'm brazilian and english (well, human languages in general) aren't my best skill, so, sorry by my english. (if you want we can speak in C# or VB.Net =p)
"Given the chance I'd rather work smart than work hard." - PHS241
"'Sophisticated platform' typically means 'I have no idea how it works.'"
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Aren't coders supposed to be lazy?
Unless there's pizza this 'effort' thing isn't worth it.
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I didn't say that he needed to care, just that it's ironic that he was being lazy about talking down lazy people 
I'm brazilian and english (well, human languages in general) aren't my best skill, so, sorry by my english. (if you want we can speak in C# or VB.Net =p)
"Given the chance I'd rather work smart than work hard." - PHS241
"'Sophisticated platform' typically means 'I have no idea how it works.'"
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Newspeak and Marching Morons all rolled into one. It'd be hilariously funny if it weren't so sad.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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I don't think saying people use it to mean the opposite is quite right - when I say "I literally starved to death waiting for dinner" I mean "literally" in the original sense, the sentence as a whole is meant to be exaggeration though. "Literally" is still "literally", because the sentence is a lie.
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That is actually a very good point: It is precisely because of the uncompromising meaning of 'literally' that the exaggeration becomes obvious. To that end, adding the alternate meaning 'not literally' in the dictionary is rather unhelpful!
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So if I say 'I'm literally pulling my hair out' How do you know if I'm actually pulling my hair out or not? It introduces ambiguity to a word that's sole purpose is to remove ambiguity.
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I'd think that's still a case of exaggeration, I've never known anyone to literally pull their hair out. That's what makes it clear - context. And of course other things like tone that may not come across well in writing.
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Not to mention saying 'I'm figuratively pulling my hair out' just doesn't carry the same punch and drama to match the mental image of 'pulling my hair out'.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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Nah, if anyone said they had "literally pulled their hair out" I would assume they meant that they had physical wrenched the hair from the follicles. Otherwise, what's the point of the word?
But then there are a number of other words used inappropriately to apply stress to a point.
For example, "absolutely", "incredibly", "awesome".
I do think that the language is losing a lot of its richness because of the lack of imagination of the utterers.
Oh, and I would ban the word "like" when used as a substitute for breathing.
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I actually literally pull my hair out. As you may or may not know, hair follicles go through active and dormant cycles. It's why you wake up in the morning and may see a few hairs on your pillow. All I do is remove those dormant hairs before they wind up clogging the drain or sullying my pillow. I've never pulled my hair out from frustration, as is the typical use of the term tends to suggest.
So now I had to use the term "actually literally" to mean "literally" and not literarily literally.
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But see, given the context, it would be pretty clear you weren't exaggerating. That would be a rather strange to exaggerate about...
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PB 369,783 wrote: Now I don't normally get to pedantic about English,
Grammatical errors like this literally make my blood boil.
/ravi
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faarrrkkkk off! 
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PB 369,783 wrote: particularly gets on my tits
Really? And your complaining about "literally"?
-NP
Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
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You're ... oh I get it, you're being ironic.
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Yea, that one is annoying. But how about "virtually". When I see this in advertisements, I always convert to "not".
For example:
"Makes your glasses virtually spot free" = "Makes your glasses *not* spot free"
"Virtually unstoppable" = "Not unstoppable"
"Virtually the best you can buy" = "Not the best you can buy"
etc.
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Tom Clement wrote: "Virtually unstoppable" = "Not unstoppable"
That only means it can be overridden to be stoppable.
I'm brazilian and english (well, human languages in general) aren't my best skill, so, sorry by my english. (if you want we can speak in C# or VB.Net =p)
"Given the chance I'd rather work smart than work hard." - PHS241
"'Sophisticated platform' typically means 'I have no idea how it works.'"
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