this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It is hyperbole, but the problem is that it's using a word that was supposed to specify that something was not hyperbole as hyperbole, rendering it useless.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

rendering it useless

Another example of hyperbole.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Okay, rendering it far less useful.

[–] ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

People, including many famous authors, have been using literally this way for hundreds of years.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes, but its use to mean its opposite didn't become widespread until the past decade or so.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

People have been complaining about it longer than a decade, so you're way off there.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally

Tldr: common use in the "figurative" sense for since the 1800s.

[–] ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Incorrect. People have been using it the way you are complaining about for hundreds of years. It’s a new phenomenon that people complain about it being used the way you disapprove of. I’d attribute the recent complaints to lack of literary exposure and anti intellectualism in recent years.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Except some of the earliest uses of the word "literally" that didn't pertain to letters and glyps we in the form of hyperbole.
Literal as factual and literal as exaggeration both about the same age and precedent, and have been used long enough that it's just part of the English language at this point.
May as well complain about how "discreet" and "indiscreet" are opposites, but "flammable" and "inflammable" are the same.

https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/wordplay/autoanto.html

English is a language of contradictions and massively confusing syntax. News at 11.