• @Ranvier
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    757 months ago

    Irregardless, if a word shifts spelling or meaning like this and is generally understood, even if initially by mistake, than it becomes becomes another correct meaning too. Like, literally.

      • @Ranvier
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        237 months ago

        Maybe it would help if you knew there were more? Or maybe that would make it feel worse, but there are more. It’s a pretty common pattern in language for some reason, called “contronyms.” So literally can mean actually or figuratively, but others include clip (cut off or attach), oversight (to overlook, or to scrutinize closely), sanction (approve something or penalize it), or even fast (moving quickly or still, as in held fast). Context is key, people will adapt as meanings are ever shifting.

          • In writing, yes. But when spoken the emphasis is different. If the “fahren” is stressed, then you are driving around something (umFAHren). If the “um” is stressed (UMfahren), then you are talking about property damage or murder.

      • @ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-300-year-history-of-using-literally-figuratively.html

        The fact that most people understand people are being literally figurative is proof that the word is working linguistically. It’s easy to understand in context which use is being intended, and always has been. The fact that people are bothered by it is the new annoying phenomenon.

        Pendants should read books, just once, or twice, at least.

        • peopleproblems
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          37 months ago

          That, and then you have my 6-year old who uses “literally” to emphasize his statements. It’s pretty funny to listen for that word at my house. It becomes a game of

          Is it Literal?

          Is it figurative?

          Is it exaggerated?

          • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            27 months ago

            In the car with my friend and his mom we used to play 20 questions. Over the years we just kept picking weirder and weirder shit. Like “the end of WW1” or “Freddy Mercury’s mustache’s leftmost whisker” or “this round of 20 questions that we are playing right now”.

            This went on from when we were like 6 to maybe 20. I think it’s where I learned respect for the precise meaning of words. We’d always try to look for the tiniest excuse to give a misleading but technically true answer, like he might ask “Is it a type of animal?” and the answer was his dog, which is “an animal” and not “a type of animal”, so I’d say no.

            We got really good at ferreting each other out on stuff like that.

            It’s a fun road trip game and it exercises your kid’s mind. Highly recommended.

      • @FlaminGoku@reddthat.com
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        7 months ago

        Words matter. Think about life before and after the dictionary definition change.

        Changing literally to figuratively broke reality.

        It was changed September 2011.

        • Tlaloc_Temporal
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          27 months ago

          That’s not 2016, or 2020, or 2008, or 2001, or even 2012. Which reality break are you talking about?

    • @Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Factoid

      A piece of unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.

      After I heard even Sam Harris misuse this word I just accepted it is now a synonym for a fact despite that the original meaning is the exact opposite.

        • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          17 months ago

          I’d say definitions are “unverified” given there’s no definition of true or false for one. By the commutative property of isness, that means definitions are factoids and we can eliminate one of the words.

          See? We’re making plusforward here. Red commits are better than green commits. That oughta be the first definition in the dictionary imo.

      • @Perfide@reddthat.com
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        27 months ago

        You could almost say the evolving definition of factoid is in of itself an example of the original definition of a factoid.