That one really needs to go away from the list; I refuse to accept "figuratively" as a valid definition for "literally", and will contradict / argue with / make fun of anyone who does so.
I sympathise, but for better or worse the OED reports that people have been using "literally" to mean "figuratively"* since at least 1769:
> 1769 F. Brooke *Hist. Emily Montague* IV. ccxvii. 83 "He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies."
> 1801 *Spirit of Farmers' Museum* 262 "He is, literally, made up of marechal powder, cravat, and bootees."
> 1825 J. Denniston *Legends Galloway* 99 "Lady Kirkclaugh, who, literally worn to a shadow, died of a broken heart."
> 1863 F. A. Kemble *Jrnl. Resid. Georgian Plantation* 105 "For the last four years..I literally coined money."
> 1876 ‘M. Twain’ *Adventures Tom Sawyer* ii. 20 "And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth."
[*] Or as they, put it, "Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense"
Those examples don't use literally to mean "literally" (or "figuratively").
Its meaning in those is closer to "pretty much", "as good as", or "almost like". It's more of a metaphorical intensifier, but there's clearly a metaphor being implied.
If you took away "literally" in both cases, it would still be understood to be figurative. "Literally" isn't doing its job of meaning literally, but it isn't meaning figuratively.
I think the correct understanding is as hyperbolic use of the regular sense of literally.
If I say, "I walked miles around the store looking for you" or "I waited for you for days", we don't say "sometimes miles means hundreds of feet and sometimes days means a few minutes". We say people sometimes exaggerate.
In the same way, "Tom was rolling in wealth [so much so that it's almost as if he were literally rolling in wealth, but of course that interpretation is silly and I'm using hyperbole to exaggerate how rolling-in-wealth Tom was]".
I don't understand the distinction you're trying to draw here. Literally 100% of the time modern people use the word "literally" in a way that means "figuratively" it's to engage in hyperbole but it's also to explicitly mark that what follows is not to be taken literally.
As you say, you can engage in hyperbole without marking it.
The distinction is that you cannot substitute the word "figuratively" in these examples, because it does not mean "figuratively".
If I say "I figuratively am going to kill him", you're highlighting the figurativeness of the act. You're stressing that you're not actually going to kill him. The meaning of the sentence is "I'm going to kill him... but not really".
If I say "I'm going to kill him" or "I'm literally going to kill him", which mean basically the same thing, it's still implied to be metaphor. But what's being stressed here is the closeness to the metaphor becoming actually literal. The meaning of the sentence is "I'm SO angry with him that I'm ALMOST at the point of killing him".
It's subtle, but there's definitely a distinction. "Figuratively" is a dehyperbolization (it's not really gonna happen), "literally" is a hyperbolization (it is hyperbolically really close to happening).
This style of argument is not persuasive. It can only tell us that people have been making an error since 1769 or something. It can't tell us that we should tolerate this error in well constructed writing. You're demonstrated nothing.
Language "rules" are errors given time. There isn't a static arbiter of what is correct and what is not, otherwise new words wouldn't be added to dictionaries.
Language is a democracy. When people say thing like "My head literally exploded", they are voting for "literally" to be a meaningless intensifier. When I make fun of them, I'm voting for it to have the meaning, "This actually happened".
Think about which way you want the language to be, and then use your vote.
Democracy implies you both have equal votes and there is an outcome that can become the norm. They are using the word 'literally' in a way that imbues additional meaning (or arguably makes a new word) without seeking permission from society or community. You are using (mild, well-meant) social coercion to try to suppress that usage. I'd say it's more anarchy than democracy.
I don't think the intensifier is meaningless. It is meaningful because otherwise people wouldn't use it. It might be jarring to you, or the meaning not obvious, but an intensifier is by definition meaningful: it intensifies, after all :)
Exactly. The post I argued against didn't provide any information about base rates, so it was not the kind of argument from popularity that you're describing. A lot of people write English. You can always find someone who screws it up in some way or another. Pointing out these screwups is not an argument that the screwup consists of a consensus language change.
One may or may not like it, but that is language how literally works.
You may not like my swapping the definitions of those words, but that is language how literally works. Therefore, according to your logic, it is valid.
It isn't really used to mean 'figuratively' though is it?
When someone says "I was so cross I literally exploded!" they are not explicitly pointing out that they didn't really explode, they're just using the word for some kind of emphasis.
Sorta... "literally" may add emphasis to the figure of speech, a hyperbole, to make it even more hyperbolic. But in your example, "to explode" (according to Webster's) also means "to burst out in anger", so "literally" in this case would just serve to attest that the explosion of anger is accurate, which is the most essential definition of "literally" anyway.
A better, similar example could be "I was so ashamed I literally imploded". In this case "literally" is just emphasizing a figurative implosion.
> "literally" may add emphasis to the figure of speech
I think "emphasis" is really what this alternate usage is.
I had a weird experience when I rented the tux for my wedding. The tux came with a colored handkerchief that was meant to be tucked into the pocket of the coat in a decorative way; and the guy showing me how to do it kept using "literally": "Literally take the handercheif, and literally fold it over so, and literally put it in the pocket so."
I was a bit bemused, but I didn't say anything, because he was literally taking the handkerchief, folding it over, and so on. But it seemed a bit strange to use it that way; I would certainly never have interpreted him as saying to metaphorically fold the handkerchief, so why emphasize "literally"?
I posted the experience to FB, and someone pointed out that he was simply using the word "literally" for emphasis: in this case, emphasizing how simple the steps were.
When people say things like "My head literally exploded", they're doing the same thing: simply using it as an intensifier.
But words have meaning, er, at least they used to. "I literally exploded" is not accurate, as they didn't actually explode. Maybe "I laterally exploded"? That word would work equally as well as it still makes no sense.
> Words have meanings, and the meaning of literally is also emphasis. Bad prescriptivism.
The insistence that simple emphasis is a valid use for "literally" -- and quoting M-W or the OED to support your case -- is just as prescriptive the insistence that it doesn't.
Language is socially constructed by the people using it; we all "vote" by using it, and by policing its use.
So let me ask you this: Do you want "literally" to be a meaningless emphasis word (and thus lose its ability to specify "this actually happened")? Or do you want "literally" to mean "I am not speaking figuratively, this thing actually happened"?
If you want the former, then I disagree with you, but sure, go ahead and use your "vote" to police people objecting to "literally" meaning "figuratively". But if you want the latter, then join me in insisting that it means "this actually happened".
