Irregardless, if a word shifts spelling or meaning like this and is generally understood, even if initially by mistake, than it becomes becomes another correct meaning too. Like, literally.
Maybe it would help if you knew there were more? Or maybe that would make it feel worse, but there are more. It’s a pretty common pattern in language for some reason, called “contronyms.” So literally can mean actually or figuratively, but others include clip (cut off or attach), oversight (to overlook, or to scrutinize closely), sanction (approve something or penalize it), or even fast (moving quickly or still, as in held fast). Context is key, people will adapt as meanings are ever shifting.
In writing, yes. But when spoken the emphasis is different. If the “fahren” is stressed, then you are driving around something (umFAHren). If the “um” is stressed (UMfahren), then you are talking about property damage or murder.
The fact that most people understand people are being literally figurative is proof that the word is working linguistically. It’s easy to understand in context which use is being intended, and always has been. The fact that people are bothered by it is the new annoying phenomenon.
Pendants should read books, just once, or twice, at least.
That, and then you have my 6-year old who uses “literally” to emphasize his statements. It’s pretty funny to listen for that word at my house. It becomes a game of
In the car with my friend and his mom we used to play 20 questions. Over the years we just kept picking weirder and weirder shit. Like “the end of WW1” or “Freddy Mercury’s mustache’s leftmost whisker” or “this round of 20 questions that we are playing right now”.
This went on from when we were like 6 to maybe 20. I think it’s where I learned respect for the precise meaning of words. We’d always try to look for the tiniest excuse to give a misleading but technically true answer, like he might ask “Is it a type of animal?” and the answer was his dog, which is “an animal” and not “a type of animal”, so I’d say no.
We got really good at ferreting each other out on stuff like that.
It’s a fun road trip game and it exercises your kid’s mind. Highly recommended.
A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.
After I heard even Sam Harris misuse this word I just accepted it is now a synonym for a fact despite that the original meaning is the exact opposite.
I’d say definitions are “unverified” given there’s no definition of true or false for one. By the commutative property of isness, that means definitions are factoids and we can eliminate one of the words.
See? We’re making plusforward here. Red commits are better than green commits. That oughta be the first definition in the dictionary imo.
Some words are poorly designed and IMO that’s one of them. Sure, you can just make up words and give them whatever meaning you want, but it won’t work so well if the word itself causes a bias of assumption towards another meaning, especially if it’s the opposite of what you want it to mean.
Just like inflammable. “In” used in that context usually means “not”. Whoever decided that it should mean “very” in this one case was IMO a bigger idiot than anyone who assumed it’s opposite meaning afterwards. Either that or an asshole if it was deliberate.
I imagine a real life remake of Aladdin where a thief kidnaps a rich girl and gets her hooked on opium. They lay in the drug house on a filthy carpet, out of their minds on drugs. A flee infested monkey eats scraps off the floor and yells at them. The thief forces the girl into slavery, always chasing the next high. Until the thief tries to blackmail the girl’s father. But the father’s business partner finds out and under brutal shariah law the girl gets beheaded. The thief is locked up and goes insane inside the dungeon, he talks to a blueish rock vaguely shaped like a man until he dies from dysentery.
States that mandate signs about lane closures being really far out claim it makes traffic flow better. In my experience it just makes traffic stop in a different spot and is likely worse than zipper merges.
My state just recently started posting signs to keep using both lanes so people wouldn't go to one lane far too early. It was nice to be able to zipper merge without people pushing back.
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