{"id":38278,"date":"2024-12-06T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38278"},"modified":"2024-12-07T06:00:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T06:00:10","slug":"love-it-or-hate-it-nonliteral-literally-is-here-to-stay-heres-why-english-will-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/love-it-or-hate-it-nonliteral-literally-is-here-to-stay-heres-why-english-will-survive\/","title":{"rendered":"Love it or hate it, nonliteral \u2018literally\u2019 is here to stay: Here\u2019s why English will survive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Valerie M. Fridland<\/a>, University of Nevada, Reno<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few words so rile language purists<\/a> as the use of the adverb \u201cliterally\u201d in a figurative sense, as in, \u201cThat movie literally blew my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as a linguist who studies how English has changed<\/a> over the centuries, I can promise that, while it might feel like nails screeching on a blackboard, the use of nonliteral \u201cliterally\u201d developed as an organic and dynamic outgrowth of the very human desire to communicate emotion and intensity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The literal past<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The word literal first appeared in English in the late 14th century, borrowed from French. In turn, French \u201cliteral\u201d came from Latin \u201clittera,\u201d with the original meaning<\/a> of \u201cpertaining to alphabetic letters.\u201d It is this same root that delivered to English the words \u201cliterate\u201d and \u201cliterature,\u201d both harking back to the idea of knowing one\u2019s \u201cletters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early English use, literal referred to the straightforward meaning recoverable from reading a religious text, as in this example from the Wycliffe Bible dating to 1383<\/a>, \u201cHoly scripture hath iiij vndirstondingis; literal, allegorik, moral, and anagogik.\u201d The word literal as used here contrasts<\/a> a direct \u2013 literal \u2013 reading of scripture\u2019s meaning to other more symbolic or metaphorical ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A page from the 1383 Wycliffe Bible, a translation that used the word literal to describe \u2018Holy scripture.\u2019 Photo 12\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the late 16th century, though, literal begins to be used not just in reference to a type of reading but also as a way to emphasize that one wants one\u2019s words to be taken literally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This development is already a semantic leap<\/a> in that, when used this way \u2013 as in, \u201cJohn literally died of thirst\u201d \u2013 the word provides no meaning contribution other than emphasizing to a listener that a speaker means it precisely as said. After all, assuming John did indeed die owing to a lack of hydration, what does a speaker really gain by saying \u201cHe literally died of thirst\u201d versus simply \u201cHe died of thirst\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advantage is that using \u201cliterally\u201d signals that what was said was unusual, unbelievable or remarkable in some way, steering a listener toward a literal rather than a perhaps more likely figurative interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, dying of thirst is not something you hear about every day, though suffering from thirst to the point where one feels like dying is a more universal experience. Such pragmatic enhancement of the word\u2019s original meaning hints at how its modern marking of strong emphasis came into play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bleached beyond recognition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The second piece of the puzzle of how \u201cliterally\u201d became nonliteral requires a brief foray into how word meanings organically evolve over time as they are put to work by speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A very germane example comes from \u201cvery,\u201d a word in which its most common meaning \u2013 \u201cextremely\u201d \u2013 is but a shadow of its original sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Middle English, \u201cvery\u201d carried the meaning of \u201cactual\u201d or \u201ctrue,\u201d as in being \u201cverray in worde and dede<\/a>\u201d \u2013 that is, true in word and deed. Yet, when something is true, particularly when used in its \u201cactual\u201d sense, it suggests that it embodies the highest degree of whatever quality is described as true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, for instance, if someone is a \u201ctrue fool,\u201d they exhibit such a high degree of foolishness they are taken for an actual fool. Used this way, two distinct but related meanings \u2013 \u201ctrue\u201d and \u201cto an extreme degree\u201d \u2013 come to coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 16th century, intensity rather than trueness had become the word very\u2019s primary sense, through a process that linguists refer to as \u201csemantic bleaching<\/a>.\u201d Interestingly, words whose meanings involve truth, such as very, really and truly<\/a>, are particularly prone to semantic bleaching. And \u201ctruth,\u201d as in \u201cexactly as said or written,\u201d takes us back to \u201cliterally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little less literal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recall that \u201cliterally\u201d once pertained only to contrasting a literal versus metaphorical reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as with \u201cvery,\u201d by the 16th century, its meaning shifts away from this purely referential meaning to a more rhetorical one: \u201cLiterally\u201d had shifted to emphasizing a speaker\u2019s literalness and flagging it as remarkable in some way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, providing expressivity<\/a> rather than a true or literal reading had become its primary role. Just consider an argument between spouses, where one says \u201cI literally called you three times.\u201d The purpose of \u201cliterally\u201d here is really only one of underscoring the implication that calling three times was excessive and unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there to hyperbolically saying \u201cI was literally dying of thirst\u201d is just one step further down the road of semantic bleaching. The figurative reading becomes more and more possible, as speakers capitalize exclusively on the expressive force rather than the word\u2019s former shell of literality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is really no different than saying something like \u201cI am truly dying over here\u201d when one is frustrated, but is, in fact, not actually dying. It is intensity conveyed, not imminent death, as \u201ctruly\u201d has moved from marking truth to marking emphasis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Word meanings organically evolve over time as they are put to work by speakers. jaouad.K\/iStock via Getty Images Plus<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sign of the times<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But what of using \u201cliterally\u201d to mean something seemingly contradictory to its original meaning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On that front, it is certainly far from the first word in English to have shifted toward its opposite. For instance, when in 1667\u2019s \u201cParadise Lost\u201d John Milton writes<\/a>, \u201cThe Serpent \u2026 with brazen Eyes And hairie Main terrific,\u201d the word \u201cterrific\u201d is absolutely intended in its original sense of \u201cterrifying\u201d<\/a>\u201c as opposed to our modern “fabulous\u201d take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, conflicting senses even exist at the same time<\/a>. Think of how \u201cclipping\u201d can be about cutting something away or pulling something together. Likewise, consider the often oppositionally employed verb \u201cto cleave,\u201d with which one either tears apart or sticks together. In this bigger semantic picture, using \u201cliterally\u201d nonfiguratively is really nothing to get worked up over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gist is that language changes because of how it finds itself most gainfully employed by speakers as it winds its way through time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literally\u2019s main problem is that, unlike \u201cterrific\u201d or \u201cvery,\u201d its semantic past has not yet faded from collective memory. But for those who still cling to its literalness despite the fact that Frances Brooke<\/a>, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain all embraced its figurative glory<\/a>, it may simply be time to literally let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valerie M. Fridland<\/a>, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valerie M. Fridland, University of Nevada, Reno Few words so rile language purists as the use of the adverb \u201cliterally\u201d in a figurative sense, as in, \u201cThat movie literally blew my mind.\u201d But as a linguist who studies how English has changed over the centuries, I can promise that, while it might feel like nails […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":38279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,37,292,10,296,38],"tags":[2756,1164,3739,885,891,886,860,2755,15803,12800],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38280,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38278\/revisions\/38280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}