Are We Saying Literally Too Much?

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PICTURE & VIDEO SOURCES
NBCUniversal
Pixabay
Roman Odintsov
Columbia Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Tima Miroshnichenko
Boy In Bristol Photography
Andre Furtado
Andrea Piacquadio
Walt Disney Studios

[NameExplain]

Suggest a topic for next Monday's video, It will literally make me the happiest person on Earth.

[PapaTaurean]

My daughter and all her friends say literally just about every other sentence. I'm figuratively going out of my mind lol

[elainebenes]

I don't have a problem with using it for hyperbole when appropriate. But there are people who literally say literally in every single sentence and that is very annoying.
And they dont even use it for hyperbole. They say things like "this button literally turns on my lights"

[Stratelier]

I think the controversial usage of "literally" is just another link in a long evolution of intensifiers -- "legitimately", "seriously", "really", "very", "truly" ("verily"), etc. Use an intensifier too often and it becomes a phatic term, losing its actual meaning and functioning largely just as a signal for a specific tone or subtext.

[francisjo]

As much as it annoys me, when I was young we used the word "totally" in excess. I see the abuse of "literally" as a continuation of that.

[sparky]

In America, if you just say pie, people think of a dessert pie. When we speak of meat pies, we'll put the type of meat it has. A "Chicken Pot Pie", or a "Beef Pot Pie", "Pot" being the style or shape. We also have a meat pie from Mexico called "empanada" or from Jamaica called "patty". For example, we might order a beef empanada in a Mexican restaurant or a chicken patty in a Jamaican restaurant. They are both in a folded or turnover form.

[nicholasglisonn]

It bugs me for people to close a quote by saying “quote unquote” before they actually make the quote. This started fairly recently.

[urathore]

This is literally an amazing question.

[lewatoaofair]

Yes. It’s an easy “yes.”
People say “literally” too much to the point of constant and consistent misuse.
To quote Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

[vincentmorris]

To quote Johnny T, "if you say 'I laughed so hard, I literally pooped my pants', there better be actual poop in your actual pants, or literally you're a little illiterate."

[vovacat]

Word usage evolves naturally and no amount of linguist's anger can change that. Words only mean whatever people use them for. That's literally how language works.

[balaam_]

What about my liquid friend that only takes up .264 US gallons of space? He’s my liter ally

[KingOfItiapolis]

We are literally not saying literally too much. Like LITERALLY, literally is not overused…

[kandipiatkowski]

I have a different perspective of 2012. I spent Christmas in the hospital after having my kidney removed. However, I "literally" (and physically) haven't been able to get out of bed for the last few months.

[TentoesMe]

Someone has been reading, or watching, A Series of Unfortunate Events." Literally.

[chrissaltmarsh]

I get annoyed by the use of the word 'exponentially'. It is used as meaning 'getting bigger', and an exponential function may well get smaller.
And anyway, it is more likely to be a linear function or something with bounds. Like a hyperbolic function.
Yes, I am literally a physicist (retired) (grumpy)

[MissSiobahnMaebh]

I was told that if you can exchange "actually" or "truly" for literally then don't use literally.

This question gets asked every year. Literally.

[chitlitlah]

I'm not sure what's worse: people using 'literally' to mean 'the opposite of literally', or people using it when the sentence can only be taken literally, such as, "It is literally hot outside." I'm sure glad you threw in the word 'literally' because I would've thought your statement about the heat was an allegory about Caesar's quest to conquer the Gauls...

[LewisLittle]

This is a word that has been well and truly "skunked", to the extent that it's now appearing in dictionaries in it's new meaning. Another example is "moot point" which originally meant "something worth debating" but now means "irrelevant or insignificant".

But, languages are not static; they evolve over time. And I'm glad they do, otherwise we'd still all be speaking Old English.