What petty hill will you die on?

thrawn@beehaw.org to Chat@beehaw.org – 161 points –

For me I say that a truck with a cab longer than its bed is not a truck, but an SUV with an overgrown bumper.

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Former linguistics grad student here: The meaning of "literal" is changing, and sentences like "That guy is literally 500 years old" are correct.

[Waves from the other hill] I will never accept that usage of "literal" as correct.

Sees you from a few hills away: Oh my gosh we’re literally right next to each other! 😜

Yes. Ling PhD here -- after teaching for 10+ years, the thing most people consistently do not understand about language is: the dictionary does not define what words mean. Dictionaries at best are a representation of what words meant at one time, and those meanings change quickly and pervasively enough that there is constantly a non-zero* number of words for which the dictionary is already wrong.

*in actuality it's probably significantly higher than what is connotated by "non-zero"

Yes, this is the excuse I use too when I mess up the pronunciation of a word and people have an issue with it. They understood the meaning so the communication was successful which is the point.

As a fellow linguistics student here, completely agree. I randomly get those 'grammar nazis' like "doesnt that sort of stuff upset you?" like nahh man that stuff is fascinating! Don't lump me in with you, pleaseee.

I agree and will take it further. We don't even need to posit a change in the meaning of the word, we need only assume that when people use the word literally, they do not mean the word "literally" literally, they mean it figuratively.

Who says you have to use the word "literally" literally? You don't have to say the word "loudly" loudly!

So, what's the new word for what “literal” used to mean?

Honestly, it’s also “literally”. Humans are complex lol.

Back when I was in grade school, there were kids saying "as long as you know what I mean, it doesn't matter". If a word means two different/conflicting things, how can we possibly know what you mean? See also: bimonthly.

This makes me irrationally mildly upset.

Do people actually use it that way anymore though? I haven't heard anybody do it in a long time.

Yeah, I haven't heard anyone say it like that in literally, like, 500 years!

Haha good point. Come to think of it I haven’t heard it in a while, but I’m also not exactly running in circles where it would be used frequently.