This bit of cringey meme usage is bad enough, but it’s used to express an even more aggravating sentiment: the ubiquitous suggestion, on the internet, that preferring a traditionalist reading of a word is wrong while a “living language” approach is correct. But if language is living,
I don't disagree, but this seems like a strange argument--because if you insist on selecting words based on their definitions from decades and centuries ago, who's going to understand you? I mean, I don't see anybody telling you you're "wrong" for using a word "traditionally" (whatever that means.)
I think you’re reading too much into this. I don’t see any implication here that it is incorrect to use the “literal” meaning. These comments are not made in a vacuum but in response to people who deny the “figurative” definition, a large group of people who can be rather vocal. They don’t spend time arguing in favor of the “literal” meaning because there’s no need to do so; everyone accepts that meaning unquestionably. I’ve never encountered anyone who would argue that usage is wrong.
I've spent a fair bit of time on this outside of politically charged contexts, and while I'm not unsympathetic to the "literally is an intensifier" position, I think they way overplay that hand. At the end of the day language use is language use; the whole point is that people get by and more or less understand one another, and don't need linguists or (worse) philosophers of language to swoop in and tell them how to use words.
In as much as there's a debate between interpreters of legal texts or historians discussing primary documents or what have you, pointing out that seeking a "literal" interpretation of the words is no guide at all is fair. In as much as we're just talking about people talking with one another normally in a contemporary setting, you're just being ridiculous.
Wow, Merriam-Webster. I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Good point about the Marvel audiences too. I'm finally where you are in that I'm just getting weary of those movies. As you said on Facebook, making them more diverse and "woke" isn't doing much to make them actually better artistically.
As a former linguist, I think you're a bit off-base and I agree with other commenters that I have never met anyone who has suggested that using the word "literally" strictu sensu is doing anything wrong. A descriptivist attitude towards language is simply an assertion that the meaning of words is some sum total of how actual native speakers of a particular language use that word consistently at some point in time. If you want to be more specific, the set of valid meanings is roughly the set of meanings that would be understood as plausible or expected readings of the word by other native speakers, regardless of whether some readings have more social cachet/prestige/stigma than others.
To be more concrete, "literally" means both "in a strictly literal sense" and "as a manner of speaking" because native speakers of English understand both uses and recognize them as ways the words are used by other native speakers of English. Nobody is confused by the "figuratively" usage, everybody who speaks most varieties of English knows immediately what is meant. This is opposed to my trying to use literally to mean "while slathered in marmelade", which is NOT what "literally" means because there are at a first approximation zero native speakers of English who would ever use it this way and in fact encountering someone doing this would leave them surprised and confused.
Prescriptivism used as a term of art to describe language simply means asserting that one particular variety of the language is "best" or "most correct" on the basis of perceived historicity/authenticity/association with prestigious cultural forms etc. Descriptivism on the other hand rejects the idea of any particular variety being best; all the forms of a language that native speakers actually use regularly (and not just as one-off accidents because they are tired or drunk or brain-damaged or whatever) are equally legitimate ways to use the language.
I’m sure most of M-W’s Twitter is just schtick (or “branding,” or whatever), but yeah, they’re insufferable. It took the descriptivists a mere generation or so to become just as smug and pedantic as the prescriptivists. Go fig.
I don't think MW would accept your imputed implication that 'emerging uses are the only valid use'.
I'm not even sure that MW is committed to the idea that meaning is guided by traditional use. The argument could instead take the form of a reductio: "*I* don't think meaning is determined by traditional usage, but if *you* do, then please note that there is a long tradition of using 'literally' to mean figuratively." I suspect this is MW's position, because I doubt they have an issue with emerging usages, like the use of 'sick' as a positive adjective.
What annoys me with 'literally' nowadays is its overuse, whether as an intensifier or as a synonym for 'actually'. Dumb people treat it like a special sauce that makes any sentence more powerful.
I don't agree with you where you say (referring to Merriam-Webster and many others) " they’re implicitly arguing that emerging usages are the only valid use." It may make you feel that way, but I just don't see any evidence that anyone serious is arguing that only the recent/fuzzy meaning of "literal" should be used. Definitely the increasing use of the recent/fuzzy meaning makes it hard for people to use the original meaning and be understood, I get that. I think people are shaking their fingers at us, and saying "don't assume people are idiots for using the new meaning" but I don't see how you can extend that to saying those same people are criticizing people for using the traditional meaning. If people are *really* telling us we can't use the traditional meaning, I'd like to see evidence of that, implicit or not.
Sep 8, 2022·edited Sep 8, 2022Liked by Freddie deBoer
10-15 years ago, descriptivism was left-coded and prescriptivism was right-coded. The right said "speak properly" and the left said "let people be as they are -- all language is legitimate."
But when the left gained cultural power in the past several years, progressive organizations started endorsing prescriptive changes in language e.g., latinx, pregnant people, etc. that were used little outside of small political circles.
Power corrupts! Even in petty linguistic debates.
Of course, none of this matters. Like everything else, language evolves through shared mechanisms of popular usage, activist innovation, and elite endorsement, and neologisms succeed and fail based on murky societal machinery.
This is going to start a figurative fight.
I don't disagree, but this seems like a strange argument--because if you insist on selecting words based on their definitions from decades and centuries ago, who's going to understand you? I mean, I don't see anybody telling you you're "wrong" for using a word "traditionally" (whatever that means.)
One of your best, Freddie.
I think you’re reading too much into this. I don’t see any implication here that it is incorrect to use the “literal” meaning. These comments are not made in a vacuum but in response to people who deny the “figurative” definition, a large group of people who can be rather vocal. They don’t spend time arguing in favor of the “literal” meaning because there’s no need to do so; everyone accepts that meaning unquestionably. I’ve never encountered anyone who would argue that usage is wrong.
I've spent a fair bit of time on this outside of politically charged contexts, and while I'm not unsympathetic to the "literally is an intensifier" position, I think they way overplay that hand. At the end of the day language use is language use; the whole point is that people get by and more or less understand one another, and don't need linguists or (worse) philosophers of language to swoop in and tell them how to use words.
In as much as there's a debate between interpreters of legal texts or historians discussing primary documents or what have you, pointing out that seeking a "literal" interpretation of the words is no guide at all is fair. In as much as we're just talking about people talking with one another normally in a contemporary setting, you're just being ridiculous.
Wow, Merriam-Webster. I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Good point about the Marvel audiences too. I'm finally where you are in that I'm just getting weary of those movies. As you said on Facebook, making them more diverse and "woke" isn't doing much to make them actually better artistically.
You're literally the new David Foster Wallace.
As a former linguist, I think you're a bit off-base and I agree with other commenters that I have never met anyone who has suggested that using the word "literally" strictu sensu is doing anything wrong. A descriptivist attitude towards language is simply an assertion that the meaning of words is some sum total of how actual native speakers of a particular language use that word consistently at some point in time. If you want to be more specific, the set of valid meanings is roughly the set of meanings that would be understood as plausible or expected readings of the word by other native speakers, regardless of whether some readings have more social cachet/prestige/stigma than others.
To be more concrete, "literally" means both "in a strictly literal sense" and "as a manner of speaking" because native speakers of English understand both uses and recognize them as ways the words are used by other native speakers of English. Nobody is confused by the "figuratively" usage, everybody who speaks most varieties of English knows immediately what is meant. This is opposed to my trying to use literally to mean "while slathered in marmelade", which is NOT what "literally" means because there are at a first approximation zero native speakers of English who would ever use it this way and in fact encountering someone doing this would leave them surprised and confused.
Prescriptivism used as a term of art to describe language simply means asserting that one particular variety of the language is "best" or "most correct" on the basis of perceived historicity/authenticity/association with prestigious cultural forms etc. Descriptivism on the other hand rejects the idea of any particular variety being best; all the forms of a language that native speakers actually use regularly (and not just as one-off accidents because they are tired or drunk or brain-damaged or whatever) are equally legitimate ways to use the language.
Purists dislike the use of “ aggravated “ instead of “ irritated” as well.
I’m sure most of M-W’s Twitter is just schtick (or “branding,” or whatever), but yeah, they’re insufferable. It took the descriptivists a mere generation or so to become just as smug and pedantic as the prescriptivists. Go fig.
But they literally said “one of the definitions”….
I don't think MW would accept your imputed implication that 'emerging uses are the only valid use'.
I'm not even sure that MW is committed to the idea that meaning is guided by traditional use. The argument could instead take the form of a reductio: "*I* don't think meaning is determined by traditional usage, but if *you* do, then please note that there is a long tradition of using 'literally' to mean figuratively." I suspect this is MW's position, because I doubt they have an issue with emerging usages, like the use of 'sick' as a positive adjective.
What annoys me with 'literally' nowadays is its overuse, whether as an intensifier or as a synonym for 'actually'. Dumb people treat it like a special sauce that makes any sentence more powerful.
I don't agree with you where you say (referring to Merriam-Webster and many others) " they’re implicitly arguing that emerging usages are the only valid use." It may make you feel that way, but I just don't see any evidence that anyone serious is arguing that only the recent/fuzzy meaning of "literal" should be used. Definitely the increasing use of the recent/fuzzy meaning makes it hard for people to use the original meaning and be understood, I get that. I think people are shaking their fingers at us, and saying "don't assume people are idiots for using the new meaning" but I don't see how you can extend that to saying those same people are criticizing people for using the traditional meaning. If people are *really* telling us we can't use the traditional meaning, I'd like to see evidence of that, implicit or not.
10-15 years ago, descriptivism was left-coded and prescriptivism was right-coded. The right said "speak properly" and the left said "let people be as they are -- all language is legitimate."
But when the left gained cultural power in the past several years, progressive organizations started endorsing prescriptive changes in language e.g., latinx, pregnant people, etc. that were used little outside of small political circles.
Power corrupts! Even in petty linguistic debates.
Of course, none of this matters. Like everything else, language evolves through shared mechanisms of popular usage, activist innovation, and elite endorsement, and neologisms succeed and fail based on murky societal machinery.