Literally now literally means not literally
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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.
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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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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Brilliant! So virtually indistructable means literally almost indistructable. I love English. But it does suffer as a means of communication. On the other hand, what fun is it if there isn't enough ambiguity to play with?? The French go to great extreemes to keep their language pure, but I do not think that appropriate. But at it's core - all communication worth having is art and thus must be beautiful, whimsical, inventive, sometimes informitave, and yes - ambiguous in measure.
Indeed. Veritably so!
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 -
Is this a literal complaint about sarcasm or a sarcastic complaint about literalism or ... Reminds me of a joke about word use - During his normal boring lecture, a professor says 'In some languages, a double negative is a positive. And in others, it is a stronger negative. But in no language is a double positive a negative' And from the back of the lecture hall we hear 'Yeah, right' Sarcastically yours, Doug
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Indeed. Veritably so!
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 -
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.
For those maintaining dictionaries, they have two choices (literally): 1) Only list the "Correct" definitions and become an irrelevant vanguard of the language. 2) List definitions that are in actual use and not be a vanguard. As long as we are on the subject, let me burst another semantic bubble and point out that there is no "official" dictionary. And while we are at it, perhaps we could point out that the language is in fact a splintered language and "proper" spelling and word usage vary according to region. And that is without the regional idioms.
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Why? I studied the cr@p out of the English language, and have lots of luverley pieces of paper telling me how wonderful I am with it, so I'm in a position to reveal to you a secret that very few know: There is no such thing as the English language! All English languages died out more than 1500 years ago. What we speak now is a combination of West Saxon, Jute, Latin, French, etc, etc, etc. -- and I believe that we even have a Klingon word or two in our dictionaries, now. I've gone incredibly deeply into this, but have not found a single word of any English language that is still in use -- they all have their roots in other languages. The huge majority of the words we adopted from all these other language are not used "properly" at all, as in they are not used as they are/were used in the original languages. Language drift (which is what you're complaining about, even though the alleged misuse of "literally" is not principally language drift) is just the tip of the iceberg in the English abuse of other peoples' words. So don't worry about it. As I've explained to people a million times, using exaggeration for emphasis is a part of all languages, and exaggerating a situation by using "literally" is far more normal and acceptable than stealing all your words from other languages then misusing most of them.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark_Wallace wrote:
is just the tip of the iceberg in the English abuse of other peoples' words.
I've seen this in my country as well. Where they've even taken the names of things into English from my own mother tongue (Afrikaans) and used similar sounding words which have totally different ideas behind them. Not even in the same vein as the original concept. Then to make matters worse, the misused words become so general as to reflect back on the original language and change the name itself. A prime example: White Rhino. A White Rhino is (usually) coloured darker than a Black Rhino. Seems to be due to someone hearing the Dutch/Afrikaans "wijde/wye bek" (translated Wide Mouthed to distinguish it from the other type's narrower upper lip) and thinking "white". The name stuck, and over the course of a century became so much used as to change the original name - now even in Afrikaans it's known as "Wit Renoster" ~ White Rhinoceros. Where the "black" came from seems a bit fuzzy, but might be a spin-off of this misused name. I'm not too concerned about some word changing meaning due to it's misuse. As you've alluded: the entire "English" language is (at best) borrowed from other languages, even (more usually) convoluted from the original meanings. So what's one more word going down such slippery slope?
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Mark_Wallace wrote:
is just the tip of the iceberg in the English abuse of other peoples' words.
I've seen this in my country as well. Where they've even taken the names of things into English from my own mother tongue (Afrikaans) and used similar sounding words which have totally different ideas behind them. Not even in the same vein as the original concept. Then to make matters worse, the misused words become so general as to reflect back on the original language and change the name itself. A prime example: White Rhino. A White Rhino is (usually) coloured darker than a Black Rhino. Seems to be due to someone hearing the Dutch/Afrikaans "wijde/wye bek" (translated Wide Mouthed to distinguish it from the other type's narrower upper lip) and thinking "white". The name stuck, and over the course of a century became so much used as to change the original name - now even in Afrikaans it's known as "Wit Renoster" ~ White Rhinoceros. Where the "black" came from seems a bit fuzzy, but might be a spin-off of this misused name. I'm not too concerned about some word changing meaning due to it's misuse. As you've alluded: the entire "English" language is (at best) borrowed from other languages, even (more usually) convoluted from the original meanings. So what's one more word going down such slippery slope?
Another good one with Dutch is "Hoek van Holland" becoming "the Hook of Holland". "Holland Corner", Shirley.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Another good one with Dutch is "Hoek van Holland" becoming "the Hook of Holland". "Holland Corner", Shirley.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark_Wallace wrote:
Hoek
Good point, though to be fair: "hoek" can mean a corner as well as a hook (like in fishing). Usually the context makes the difference in these cases, but obviously such ambiguity can cause problems. Edit: Scratch that - just did a bit of research and found: Actually, you've just come across one which has changed in Afrikaans from the original Dutch. In Dutch it's usual to use haak instead of hoek to indicate a sharp curved pointy object. In Afrikaans, hoek is preferred as the noun, while haak is usually used as the verb (like in "to hook a fish with a hook" ~ "om 'n vis te haak met 'n hoek"). I wonder if it was actually a borrowed word from English into Afrikaans? The "hoek" I mean, wouldn't be surprised.
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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.
I didn't say that he needed to care, just that it's ironic that he was being lazy about talking down lazy people :laugh:
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.'"