this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
995 points (98.3% liked)
memes
10705 readers
2366 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Irregardless, if a word shifts spelling or meaning like this and is generally understood, even if initially by mistake, than it becomes becomes another correct meaning too. Like, literally.
I will never stop being mad that "literally" got a new dictionary definition that's literally not literally
Maybe it would help if you knew there were more? Or maybe that would make it feel worse, but there are more. It's a pretty common pattern in language for some reason, called "contronyms." So literally can mean actually or figuratively, but others include clip (cut off or attach), oversight (to overlook, or to scrutinize closely), sanction (approve something or penalize it), or even fast (moving quickly or still, as in held fast). Context is key, people will adapt as meanings are ever shifting.
or, my favorite, in German "umfahren"
can either mean "drive around"
or "run over"
The sands of time really umfahrened umfahren
In writing, yes. But when spoken the emphasis is different. If the "fahren" is stressed, then you are driving around something (umFAHren). If the "um" is stressed (UMfahren), then you are talking about property damage or murder.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-300-year-history-of-using-literally-figuratively.html
The fact that most people understand people are being literally figurative is proof that the word is working linguistically. It’s easy to understand in context which use is being intended, and always has been. The fact that people are bothered by it is the new annoying phenomenon.
Pendants should read books, just once, or twice, at least.
That, and then you have my 6-year old who uses "literally" to emphasize his statements. It's pretty funny to listen for that word at my house. It becomes a game of
Is it Literal?
Is it figurative?
Is it exaggerated?
In the car with my friend and his mom we used to play 20 questions. Over the years we just kept picking weirder and weirder shit. Like “the end of WW1” or “Freddy Mercury’s mustache’s leftmost whisker” or “this round of 20 questions that we are playing right now”.
This went on from when we were like 6 to maybe 20. I think it’s where I learned respect for the precise meaning of words. We’d always try to look for the tiniest excuse to give a misleading but technically true answer, like he might ask “Is it a type of animal?” and the answer was his dog, which is “an animal” and not “a type of animal”, so I’d say no.
We got really good at ferreting each other out on stuff like that.
It’s a fun road trip game and it exercises your kid’s mind. Highly recommended.
Illiterally
Irliterally
Words matter. Think about life before and after the dictionary definition change.
Changing literally to figuratively broke reality.
It was changed September 2011.
That's not 2016, or 2020, or 2008, or 2001, or even 2012. Which reality break are you talking about?
After I heard even Sam Harris misuse this word I just accepted it is now a synonym for a fact despite that the original meaning is the exact opposite.
Is such a fucking irony that factoid itself has become a factoid for "bit of trivia"
I’d say definitions are “unverified” given there’s no definition of true or false for one. By the commutative property of isness, that means definitions are factoids and we can eliminate one of the words.
See? We’re making plusforward here. Red commits are better than green commits. That oughta be the first definition in the dictionary imo.
You could almost say the evolving definition of factoid is in of itself an example of the original definition of a factoid.
But you wouldn’t get points in the SAT for it
Some words are poorly designed and IMO that's one of them. Sure, you can just make up words and give them whatever meaning you want, but it won't work so well if the word itself causes a bias of assumption towards another meaning, especially if it's the opposite of what you want it to mean.
Just like inflammable. "In" used in that context usually means "not". Whoever decided that it should mean "very" in this one case was IMO a bigger idiot than anyone who assumed it's opposite meaning afterwards. Either that or an asshole if it was deliberate.
"then"* it becomes
Exactly. People shouldn't misunderestimate the power of using a word wrong.
You are testing the nerves of every descriptivist here
Anybody who whines about prescriptivism is just lazy.