English usage and grammar

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A community to discuss and ask questions about English usage and grammar.

If your post refers to a specific English variant, please indicate it within square brackets (for instance [Canadian]).

Online resources:

Cambridge English Dictionary
Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus
Gilman's Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. This is a great and witty reference about usage, its history, and its controveries

Sibling communities:

!english_esl@lemmy.ml

Rules of conduct:

The usual ones on Lemmy and Mastodon.. In short: be kind or at least respectful, no offensive language, no harassment, no spam.

(Icon: entry "English" in the Oxford English Dictionary, 1933. Banner: page from Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Tale".)

founded 1 year ago

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How do we reteach the populace how to spell advice? Also, chest of drawers. They don't know that one either. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 9 months ago by Reverendender@sh.itjust.works to c/english@lemmy.ca

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[–] m0darn@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 months ago

That's why Mirriam-Webster claims 'literally' also means its exact opposite.

Just like "really", "truly", "absolutely", "actually", "genuinely", "honestly", "surely", "totally", "verily"...

It's just a type of vernacular inflation. It may be happening more quickly than it used to because people are communicating more and thus have more opportunities for "one-upping" each other with amplifying adjectives but it's (literally/metaphorically?) a force of nature (maybe both).

Overstatement is a very common rhetorical device, it doesn't usually cause confusion.

Obviously people should choose different amplifiers when saying "literally" is likely to cause confusion, but people shouldn't be chided if they say "literally" in a sentence where it's obvious what they mean.