Caffibacco

He looked me in the eye.

"I don't have any vices," he said, exhaling smoke.

"I know," I said.

We both slurped noisily from hot mugs of coffee.

This isn't meant to a completed work of sheer wonder. It just popped into my head because it's something that actually happened.

On the correct use of 'literally'

Let's talk for a bit about the word 'literally'. It's an adverbial form of the adjective 'literal'. Before we delve into literally, let's talk about literal. Forgoing the cliched inlusion of a textbook definition copy/pasted from any number of dictionary-esque websites, suffice it to say that literal means 'true to the meaning of words'. The opposite would be figurative, in which words have secondary meanings that may or may not be easily understood. From this definition of literal, we can then define literally as 'being used in a strict sense without exaggeration'.

The use of literally, however, has evolved in modern times with a sense of adding great intensity to a statement. I would like to narrow it down and say that literally, when used in such a way, means precisely the following: the statement, though seemingly exaggerated, is completely true. The problem recently is that two incorrect uses have begun to crop up, one of which directly contradicts the meaning of the word; the other is merely redundant and unnecessary.

Problem #1: Directly contradicts the meaning of the word.

"I'm so hungry, my stomach is literally eating itself." "She broke his heart. He was literally crushed." Today is hot; it's literally a thousand degrees outside."

The problem with using literally in this way is that none of it is literal at all. Literal would mean that the stomach has, in fact, eaten itself and no longer remains, or that the body was actually demolished, or that the thermometer reads one thousand degrees. None of these is true. They are not literal, they are figurative.

Problem #2: Redundant, unnecessary.

"In 1492 Columbus literally sailed across the ocean."

Obviously the problem here is that the statement is clearly fact and there has been absolutely no exaggeration. It is not important to remind the reader/listener of the truth of the statement. If we would find it difficult to believe that someone could sail across the ocean, or if we were led to believe that the entire ocean was not sailed, then literally would perhaps be used as a reminder of the validity of the statement, or against claims of exaggeration. As it is, it's just completely useless.

Words evolve and change, it's true. But using a word that is still in common usage in a completely opposite manner is debilitating to language. If you ask me how I feel and I say "terrible" would you be concerned? But what if I meant 'great' when I said 'terrible'? Would you be confused? How about the next time you ask me and I say "great"? Does that now mean 'terrible' or does it still mean 'great'? We should probably agree on what the words mean and then stick to it, so we are able to understand each other better next time.

Thanks for reading. Have an awful day.