I am Literally Disappointed
 

The Oxford English Dictionary has been amended to show that literally can now be used for emphasis and to mean metaphorically.

I can no longer snigger at phrases like "Michael Jackson literally exploded onto the music scene" or "In his youth, Michael Owen was literally a greyhound."
It takes some fun out of this pedant's life.

But hey, I accept pronunciation and meaning changes because that's part of English. Not going to go against the OED on this one. It's just galling to become a dinosaur at 41. Literally.

Fucking annoying.


It literally makes me want to claw my own eyes out.

God damn it!

Blood is not literally pouring out of my ears.

Geeesh, now I literally can't stop my G-daughter from using
"air quotes" and "literally" in literally every other sentence.

Thie litterally gives me the shits. I'll brb!

I think this is shite. Are they going to change the definition if the word 'bad' now? To include the opposite meaning like we do. "That car is bad." "Bad Ass"

Where will the madness end¿ I ask you.

I'm gonna watch porn. Literally.

If they have changed the meaning of literally, do you think they should change nonplussed to mean what it seems it should mean?

What does it seem it should mean?

It logically seems to mean "unenthused" or "not impressed," but in fact means "speechless." Many people use it when they intend the former meaning and don't even have any idea that it actually doesn't mean that at all.

OK, here's another change we should make...

"Next Friday" or whatever "Next XXXday" is to mean whenever I mean it to mean.





Oh wait. It's already used to mean that. :neutral:

Ahhh gotcha. It's always meant kind of stunned or confused into silence to me....bemused or taken aback by something.


That explains why someone once picked me up on my use of it on a forum. I'd used it (correctly) to say I was nonplussed by something someone had said to me. And someone posted 'are you sure you meant to say nonplussed'. Their comment made no sense to me...but now it kind of does. They must have thought nonplussed meant unimpressed or not enthused. When what I was trying to say was that something someone had said to me was so off kilter and unexpected I was entirely taken aback and had no idea how to respond.

Instead of changing words' meanings, we should be adding words.

Words like 'whattheidonteven'.

That definitely needs to be accepted as a proper word.

The dictionary isn't supposed to tell you what words mean, it's supposed to tell you what people mean when they say them.

I'm leaning heavily on the Gricean Maxims and the Cooperative Principle when I say this, but I'm also biting my tongue.



I don't think ignorance should be glorified, but neither should asshole-ish nitpicking. So there are two sides.