Literally = Not-Literally. The English language is doomed.
Click-bait title aside. This one deserves a literal-literal WTF. I now have to repeat the word so you know which one I'm using.
I have absolutely zero issue with new words being added to the language. I also have no issues with one definition supplanting another one. The beef here is that the Oxford dictionary actually lists 2 mutually exclusive definitions at the same time and for the same word.
Someone needs to be fired over this. Literally! (I mean that in the "old" sense of the word, yet again).
I don't generally rant about language. But this is... unprecedented. What's next? Should we change the spelling of "probably" to "probbly" or "prolly" because the first is how everyone says or the second is how everyone spells it? Oddly, if we did, that would still be less troublesome than this.
New words? Great! People trying to learn English need a dictionary to help define the words they will hear throughout their adventure through the hell hole that is learning English and if a non-word is used widely and often enough, it makes perfect sense to promote it to an actual word, slam a formal definition on it and move on.
Definitions being updated or replaced? Also fine with that. Words, as they fall out of use, are often misused and the original meaning becomes defunct to the point where it is rarely if ever used at all. More often than not, I suspect this happens more with "dead" words that are randomly brought back and made popular in a new medium. But, again, this is just setting the record straight. It would be borderline impossible to accidentally run into someone using the now dead definition of the word anyway, so again, make a fix and move on.
But, in this case, both the "old" and "new" definitions are still widely used. So, we have a word that both means what it should mean and something which the other definition expressly doesn't mean being formally accepted at the same damn time. In fact, the informal definition actually includes the words "not" and "literally" in its definition. WHAT THE LITERAL-LITERAL FUCK? To throw some logic at it... it would be like seeing the following the definition:
A -
A means A.
Alternatively, means Not A.
The only comfort here is that the English language isn't literally doomed because people apparently don't actually use dictionaries any more or if they do disregard the definitions when forming sentences anyway.
I have absolutely zero issue with new words being added to the language. I also have no issues with one definition supplanting another one. The beef here is that the Oxford dictionary actually lists 2 mutually exclusive definitions at the same time and for the same word.
Someone needs to be fired over this. Literally! (I mean that in the "old" sense of the word, yet again).
I don't generally rant about language. But this is... unprecedented. What's next? Should we change the spelling of "probably" to "probbly" or "prolly" because the first is how everyone says or the second is how everyone spells it? Oddly, if we did, that would still be less troublesome than this.
New words? Great! People trying to learn English need a dictionary to help define the words they will hear throughout their adventure through the hell hole that is learning English and if a non-word is used widely and often enough, it makes perfect sense to promote it to an actual word, slam a formal definition on it and move on.
Definitions being updated or replaced? Also fine with that. Words, as they fall out of use, are often misused and the original meaning becomes defunct to the point where it is rarely if ever used at all. More often than not, I suspect this happens more with "dead" words that are randomly brought back and made popular in a new medium. But, again, this is just setting the record straight. It would be borderline impossible to accidentally run into someone using the now dead definition of the word anyway, so again, make a fix and move on.
But, in this case, both the "old" and "new" definitions are still widely used. So, we have a word that both means what it should mean and something which the other definition expressly doesn't mean being formally accepted at the same damn time. In fact, the informal definition actually includes the words "not" and "literally" in its definition. WHAT THE LITERAL-LITERAL FUCK? To throw some logic at it... it would be like seeing the following the definition:
A -
A means A.
Alternatively, means Not A.
The only comfort here is that the English language isn't literally doomed because people apparently don't actually use dictionaries any more or if they do disregard the definitions when forming sentences anyway.
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