This article seems about ten years late. I rarely see it being raised by self-proclaimed grammar nazis anymore, and I feel like the descriptivist vs prescriptive argument is well-played out at...
This article seems about ten years late. I rarely see it being raised by self-proclaimed grammar nazis anymore, and I feel like the descriptivist vs prescriptive argument is well-played out at this point.
Regardless, the argument that the term "literally" can be used in a hyperbolic sense has never really landed well with me. These writers are using the term for effect; to make the language more evocative or imaginative. This is an intentional breaking of "the rules" to instill a specific state in the reader.
That's... not how it's used today. It's used as a generic intensifier. "I'm literally so hungry right now" is not trying to be evocative or colorful with language, it's just saying "I am very hungry".
That's fine. Language changes, and this is now an accepted usage. I find it much more drab in comparison, and I might argue that the loss of "literal" does hurt the expressiveness of English, but that's how it goes. Prescriptivists don't last long in this world, and we must adapt.
Still, I take some annoyance with the argument. In the corpus of great writers, there will be an example of breaking established rules to prove any one argument. I can point to Cormac McCarthy as an argument for never having to use quotation marks in my writing. Does that mean that the rule is bad, or never existed? Not at all. The same goes too for "literally".
Sometimes language changes. So be it. But let's not post-hoc justify those changes with cherry picking like this.
Most of these examples seem to be from dialogue or a narrator's monologue. Should those even count towards the argument the writer is trying to make here? If an author wants to make a believable...
Most of these examples seem to be from dialogue or a narrator's monologue. Should those even count towards the argument the writer is trying to make here? If an author wants to make a believable character, they may have that character use literally the way most people do; to mean figuratively.
And I wouldn't be surprised if Tom Sawyer literally laid out his treasures on the ground and rolled around on top of them. Well, not the tin soldier; that would both hurt and risk breaking it.
This article seems about ten years late. I rarely see it being raised by self-proclaimed grammar nazis anymore, and I feel like the descriptivist vs prescriptive argument is well-played out at this point.
Regardless, the argument that the term "literally" can be used in a hyperbolic sense has never really landed well with me. These writers are using the term for effect; to make the language more evocative or imaginative. This is an intentional breaking of "the rules" to instill a specific state in the reader.
That's... not how it's used today. It's used as a generic intensifier. "I'm literally so hungry right now" is not trying to be evocative or colorful with language, it's just saying "I am very hungry".
That's fine. Language changes, and this is now an accepted usage. I find it much more drab in comparison, and I might argue that the loss of "literal" does hurt the expressiveness of English, but that's how it goes. Prescriptivists don't last long in this world, and we must adapt.
Still, I take some annoyance with the argument. In the corpus of great writers, there will be an example of breaking established rules to prove any one argument. I can point to Cormac McCarthy as an argument for never having to use quotation marks in my writing. Does that mean that the rule is bad, or never existed? Not at all. The same goes too for "literally".
Sometimes language changes. So be it. But let's not post-hoc justify those changes with cherry picking like this.
Most of these examples seem to be from dialogue or a narrator's monologue. Should those even count towards the argument the writer is trying to make here? If an author wants to make a believable character, they may have that character use literally the way most people do; to mean figuratively.
And I wouldn't be surprised if Tom Sawyer literally laid out his treasures on the ground and rolled around on top of them. Well, not the tin soldier; that would both hurt and risk breaking it.