Yes. Ling PhD here – after teaching for 10+ years, the thing most people consistently do not understand about language is: the dictionary does not define what words mean. Dictionaries at best are a representation of what words meant at one time, and those meanings change quickly and pervasively enough that there is constantly a non-zero* number of words for which the dictionary is already wrong.
*in actuality it’s probably significantly higher than what is connotated by “non-zero”
Yes, this is the excuse I use too when I mess up the pronunciation of a word and people have an issue with it. They understood the meaning so the communication was successful which is the point.
100%. If people get the point, that’s a successful transfer of information. You may have transferred more than you wanted (like the implication that you’ve never heard the word before), but you did complete the transfer.
While I don’t support language prescriptivism just for the sake of it, there should be a common understanding what words mean.
Otherwise language loses its function to accurately and effectively transport information, no?
There is, though: that’s exactly why we can communicate in the first place. The fact that one can have spoken language mastery without literacy also suggests we really don’t need to be defining words explicitly in order to use them effectively.
Similarly, I’d speculate thay the word “blog” was likely in usage for years before it showed up in a dictionary. It would have been added to that dictionary based on its existing commonality – so I don’t see how shared written word definitions really help at all, even with new coinages.
Defining words in a meaningful way (pun intended) is actually a really difficult proposition. A lot of that comes from the fact that context means a whole lot, and words may also have different meanings to different people. It can be useful in some situations to have some written definitions – e.g., legal proceedings, where word meanings need to be locked down to avoid possible ambiguities. Mostly this is done as a matter of convenience, though, and within a very specific domain.
Modern dictionaries are (mostly) descriptive, but I would rather they were proscriptive and absolutely forbid misusing words; even going as far as giving examples of why one use was right and another wrong.
…
… but… that said, I firmly believe that ‘affect’ should relate to ‘affectation’ and ‘effect’ should relate to ‘change’ and ‘result’, but I realize the world will say I’m wrong in phrases like, “the pandemic effected everyone.” When I put ‘affected’ in there, I read it as the pandemic suddenly anthropomorphizing itself to literally act like humanity – acting like it was ‘everyone’.
As a fellow linguistics student here, completely agree. I randomly get those ‘grammar nazis’ like “doesnt that sort of stuff upset you?” like nahh man that stuff is fascinating! Don’t lump me in with you, pleaseee.
I agree and will take it further. We don’t even need to posit a change in the meaning of the word, we need only assume that when people use the word literally, they do not mean the word “literally” literally, they mean it figuratively.
Who says you have to use the word “literally” literally? You don’t have to say the word “loudly” loudly!
Honestly, you’re not wrong. As someone who cares a great deal about the accuracy of my communication, I always avoid the word “biweekly” at work for exactly this reason. It’s just that…it’s complicated. Language is essentially a really big democracy where meaning, structure, etc, are all constantly decided by everyone speaking it. If something becomes allowed by enough people, then it becomes de facto “correct”, even if it muddies the system as a whole.
I prefer to take a very pragmatic approach to it all. (For my linguistics friends, I’m not using “pragmatic” in the technical sense.) In situations where communication is important or you don’t know your audience well, I would advise people not to use “literally” in the non-literal sense. But if I were teaching English as a foreign language, I would absolutely teach this meaning of “literally” to an advanced learner. To not do so would be a disservice to them and potentially engender misunderstandings. (Whether I would teach something to an advanced second language learner is a good litmus test for whether something is linguistically “correct”.)
The other thing (sorry for the long comment) is that humans are generally better at inferring meaning from context than we realize. For instance, I would be willing to bet that most people reading these two sentences pretty easily understand the intended meaning of the word “literally”:
Oh my gosh that man is literally the creepiest guy alive.
When you drink, you are quite literally ingesting poison. (Just an example sentence! Not a medical expert!)
In both sentences, the topic of the sentence and the addition of the words / phrases like “oh my gosh” and “quite” go a long way to clarifying the intended meaning.
Also also: I just realized that my use of the word “drink” for “drink alcohol” is an unintentional second example of our ability to infer meaning from context.
Former linguistics grad student here: The meaning of “literal” is changing, and sentences like “That guy is literally 500 years old” are correct.
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Sees you from a few hills away: Oh my gosh we’re literally right next to each other! 😜
Yes. Ling PhD here – after teaching for 10+ years, the thing most people consistently do not understand about language is: the dictionary does not define what words mean. Dictionaries at best are a representation of what words meant at one time, and those meanings change quickly and pervasively enough that there is constantly a non-zero* number of words for which the dictionary is already wrong.
*in actuality it’s probably significantly higher than what is connotated by “non-zero”
Yes, this is the excuse I use too when I mess up the pronunciation of a word and people have an issue with it. They understood the meaning so the communication was successful which is the point.
100%. If people get the point, that’s a successful transfer of information. You may have transferred more than you wanted (like the implication that you’ve never heard the word before), but you did complete the transfer.
While I don’t support language prescriptivism just for the sake of it, there should be a common understanding what words mean.
Otherwise language loses its function to accurately and effectively transport information, no?
There is, though: that’s exactly why we can communicate in the first place. The fact that one can have spoken language mastery without literacy also suggests we really don’t need to be defining words explicitly in order to use them effectively.
Similarly, I’d speculate thay the word “blog” was likely in usage for years before it showed up in a dictionary. It would have been added to that dictionary based on its existing commonality – so I don’t see how shared written word definitions really help at all, even with new coinages.
Defining words in a meaningful way (pun intended) is actually a really difficult proposition. A lot of that comes from the fact that context means a whole lot, and words may also have different meanings to different people. It can be useful in some situations to have some written definitions – e.g., legal proceedings, where word meanings need to be locked down to avoid possible ambiguities. Mostly this is done as a matter of convenience, though, and within a very specific domain.
Modern dictionaries are (mostly) descriptive, but I would rather they were proscriptive and absolutely forbid misusing words; even going as far as giving examples of why one use was right and another wrong. … … but… that said, I firmly believe that ‘affect’ should relate to ‘affectation’ and ‘effect’ should relate to ‘change’ and ‘result’, but I realize the world will say I’m wrong in phrases like, “the pandemic effected everyone.” When I put ‘affected’ in there, I read it as the pandemic suddenly anthropomorphizing itself to literally act like humanity – acting like it was ‘everyone’.
As a fellow linguistics student here, completely agree. I randomly get those ‘grammar nazis’ like “doesnt that sort of stuff upset you?” like nahh man that stuff is fascinating! Don’t lump me in with you, pleaseee.
I agree and will take it further. We don’t even need to posit a change in the meaning of the word, we need only assume that when people use the word literally, they do not mean the word “literally” literally, they mean it figuratively.
Who says you have to use the word “literally” literally? You don’t have to say the word “loudly” loudly!
So, what’s the new word for what “literal” used to mean?
Deadass
Honestly, it’s also “literally”. Humans are complex lol.
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Honestly, you’re not wrong. As someone who cares a great deal about the accuracy of my communication, I always avoid the word “biweekly” at work for exactly this reason. It’s just that…it’s complicated. Language is essentially a really big democracy where meaning, structure, etc, are all constantly decided by everyone speaking it. If something becomes allowed by enough people, then it becomes de facto “correct”, even if it muddies the system as a whole.
I prefer to take a very pragmatic approach to it all. (For my linguistics friends, I’m not using “pragmatic” in the technical sense.) In situations where communication is important or you don’t know your audience well, I would advise people not to use “literally” in the non-literal sense. But if I were teaching English as a foreign language, I would absolutely teach this meaning of “literally” to an advanced learner. To not do so would be a disservice to them and potentially engender misunderstandings. (Whether I would teach something to an advanced second language learner is a good litmus test for whether something is linguistically “correct”.)
The other thing (sorry for the long comment) is that humans are generally better at inferring meaning from context than we realize. For instance, I would be willing to bet that most people reading these two sentences pretty easily understand the intended meaning of the word “literally”:
In both sentences, the topic of the sentence and the addition of the words / phrases like “oh my gosh” and “quite” go a long way to clarifying the intended meaning.
Also also: I just realized that my use of the word “drink” for “drink alcohol” is an unintentional second example of our ability to infer meaning from context.
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fr
This makes me irrationally mildly upset.
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Yeah, I haven’t heard anyone say it like that in literally, like, 500 years!
I hear it all the time in my circles.
Haha good point. Come to think of it I haven’t heard it in a while, but I’m also not exactly running in circles where it would be used frequently.
@KidDogDad
@thrawn21
How, then, would somebody be able to convey that somebody is literally 500 years old?