/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5239588]

>literally now literally means the opposite of literally

it's over plebs have won

[Anonymous No.5239595]

welcome to meta-sincerity OP

LITERALLY

[Anonymous No.5239604]

>>5239588
>implying words have a single meaning outside of context

[Anonymous No.5239607]

>>5239595
>yfw we are experiencing the most sincere time in history

[Anonymous No.5239625]

>>5239588
"lilly, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run of her feet"

was james joyce a pleb?

[Anonymous No.5239653]

I know, has to be the most bizarre instance of a word's transformation I can think of. pretty obnoxious.

>>5239604

>le postmodern semantics face

[Anonymous Namefag No.5239672]

People who have a problem with this probably use dozens of other words in a non-prescriptive manner without realizing it. I guess people need to grasp at anything to make themselves feel smart.

[Anonymous No.5239682]

>>5239588
prescriptivists plz go

[Anonymous No.5239687]

There is no literal meaning, in the "literal" sense. It is good that this word has lost its "original" meaning. "Heh".

[Anonymous No.5239699]

>>5239588
>People have literally been using 'literally' as a hyperbole since the 1700s (literally).

[Anonymous No.5239703]

Why was rei banned?

[Anonymous No.5239712]

This thread is literal

[Anonymous No.5239716]

>>5239588

You used literally wrong in one of those usages of literally if you want to be pedantic.

[Anonymous No.5239725]

>>5239607
yeah, the whole point of pomo is sincerity in the sense of admitting that our "truths" are only masked morals
it is unfortunately also the most nihilistic time in history

[Anonymous No.5239727]

>>5239703
Because he is literally a pedophile.

[Anonymous No.5239728]

>>5239672

This. See also "I think you'll find you mean you COULDN'T care less. If you COULD care less, that means you do in fact care" etc. Not a fucking one of them blinks at 'Big deal' or 'Tell me about it'.

>>5239588

It doesn't literally mean the opposite, it has assumed a context-dependent meaning, an implicature of which is that the expression is figurative. It's used as an intensifier, not as a means of clarifying whether or not the events described actually took place. We can see this by trying to imagine that Adam tells Bella that Charlie 'totally killed himself studying for his exams." If Bella exclaims "Oh! How awful! His family must be devastated," we can't envision Adam saying "Oh, no, I meant it literally" which we would need to be able to imagine for your claim to be correct.

Other historical examples of words coming to mean their opposites are fairly plentiful, the process being termed 'inversion'. Like a lot of phenomena in this field, it's something in which, over time, you can see recurrent currents and eddies where words shift in the same direction and manner. Consider 'really' for a point of comparison. There really was a time when 'really' just meant 'in reality' and now that just seems really strange, doesn't it, since we're so used to it as an intensifier.

And there's the whole family of 'wicked' and 'deadly' and 'bad' and so forth. Fretting over this sort of thing is not only silly, it's the mark of a poor knowledge of the language, never mind understanding of it.

[Anonymous No.5239732]

>>5239727
wtf happened?
rei is/was best tripfag

[Anonymous No.5239747]

>>5239728
>it's the mark of a poor knowledge of the language
it's also the mark of autism in some cases in the sense of not being able to read context

[Anonymous No.5239751]

For all intensive purposes does it really matter?

[Anonymous No.5239752]

>>5239588

I am literally fuming over this. Seriously, I'm gonna have to crack a window soon.

[Anonymous No.5239756]

>>5239747
OP might literally be autistic

[Anonymous No.5240288]

>>5239588
I checked the dictionary, the definition for literally wasn't "the opposite of literally"

Have you misused the word literally?

[Anonymous No.5240500]

>>5239672
Next you'll tell me ebonics is perfectly accetable because some white people use "fewer" instead of "less"

[Anonymous No.5240551]

What's worse is that there are shit-cunts out there who defend the misuse of words as the evolution of language, and that you just have to get with it.

These are the same turds who want to legitimize ebonics.

[Anonymous No.5240594]

>>5239653
Define game.

[Anonymous No.5240600]

>>5240594
Something you just lost.

[Anonymous No.5240629]

>>5240551
>modern english
>not the ebonics of the 16th century

[Anonymous No.5240638]

>>5239588
>words don't mean what native speakers intend them to mean!
>they mean what I, OP, guardian of language, dictate they mean!!

[Anonymous Namefag No.5240738]

>>5240551

Why do you speak a 21st century vernacular instead of more "pure" English? Something more along the lines of Chaucer? Everything since then has been a misuse of words by such a standard.

[Anonymous No.5240887]

>>5240500

That's actually a hypercorrection - there's no actual rule regarding the use of 'fewer' and 'less'.

[Anonymous No.5240903]

>>5240738
Because I was never taught.

[Anonymous No.5240910]

>mfw people say something like "If I was president," instead of with "If I were president"
>mfw nobody can into subjunctive

[Anonymous No.5240945]

>>5240910

The subjunctive mood is pretty, but unnecessary. I use it (because it's pretty) but I don't judge those who don't.

Outside of the raw conveyance of meaning, all grammatical considerations should be aesthetic.

[Anonymous No.5240950]

>>5240945
everything is aesthetics

[Anonymous No.5240959]

>>5240950

Well, I think regarding the act of successfully conveying one's meaning is utilitarian. I guess you could regard the way we view utility as fundamentally aesthetic.

[Anonymous No.5240968]

>>5239595
10/10 post

[Anonymous No.5240978]

>>5240959
conveying social class and education via speech is also utilitarian although that is also just aesthetics if you go far enough down anyway

[Anonymous No.5240986]

>>5240978
>if you go far enough down

I disagree - I'd say 'Because of the utility it affords me' is far better as an answer to the question 'Why do you discriminate between different styles of speech?' than vice versa.

[Anonymous No.5241025]

>>5239588
Haha u can read! Aspies lol

[Anonymous No.5241037]

[Mademoiselle !2ryFggO9U. No.5241043]

>>5239728
"Egregious" is another example of a word coming to mean its opposite over time.

[le trole faec ಠ_ಠ !Avm1fqtITk No.5241046]

>>5239588
>Wahh I can't handle adaptive language and actually believe in unique definitions and unambiguous grammar
>Wahh I'm mentally autistic
>Wahh even the local /lit/ aspie isn't as autistic as me

[Anonymous No.5241063]

>>5241046
le epic autism sufferer

[Anonymous No.5241065]

>>5239588

You might say it is literally identical with its opposite.

[Mademoiselle !2ryFggO9U. No.5241068]

>>5240887
There isn't? My Oxford Dictionary of English says that "less" should be used with mass nouns (e.g. cheese, money), while "fewer" should be used with countable nouns (e.g. people). Certainly something like "fewer cheese" must be regarded as incorrect.

[Anonymous No.5241069]

>>5239728
Big deal is intentionally sarcastic. The problem is that people are unintentionally misusing it. Intentional/ironic misuse is fine. >>5240738
There was no normalized "English" in Chaucer's time. I'm pretty sure he spells a number of words differently throughout his work. And other authors were certainly using different spellings at the time. So to say someone should be speaking "pure" middle English is basically nonsensical.

[Anonymous No.5241122]

>>5241068
>There isn't?

No, there isn't, or at least, the existence of any such rule is a figment of various lexicographical gangsters as Oxford and is well predated by indiscriminate (at least, in one direction) use among native speakers.

>As it turns out, this whole notion that fewer is countable and less is uncountable has been traced back to 1770 by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage. And it wasn’t a rule back then, but rather a preference of a single author, Robert Baker. (That’s not to say that no one agreed with him, only that no one else seems to have put it in print back then.) So it’s not that modern ne’er-do-wells are ruining the language; at worst, they’re returning it to an earlier state. The OED attests countable less in 1481, derived from an Old English usage attested by no less a personage than King Alfred.

http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/10-items-or-less-is-just-fine/

>>5241069
>Big deal is intentionally sarcastic.

Steven Pinker claims that 'could care less' also is. I don't accept his claim that it can be detected in the tone of modern use, but then I don't think it can be detected in the tone of 'Big deal' or 'Tell me about it', either.

Or consider 'Tough luck'. I don't believe I've ever heard that intoned sarcastically and yet it's clearly 'fossilised' sarcasm.

[Anonymous No.5241130]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDEi_12JmkE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGhXyRURq6A

:^)

[Anonymous No.5241140]

>>5240500
What does fewer/less have to do with AAVE?

[Anonymous No.5241159]

>mfw there are people who literally think English was artificially constructed by humans and think you have to be taught a language in school to speak it

[Anonymous No.5241163]

>>5241159
>mfwe jgnas feels engsal cfjs jfsmd vcn read ftj to mmlore

[Anonymous Namefag No.5241168]

>>5241069

There is not a normalized English in our time either just a set of generally accepted conventions.

[Anonymous No.5241173]

>>5241163
>mfw I'm not sure if this guy is arguing in favor of my post or against it

[Anonymous No.5241174]

>>5241168
tyrr hup fcwa saied espie sucheforth nonsceince...

[Anonymous Namefag No.5241201]

>>5241130

I can literally hear the autism.

[Anonymous No.5241211]

>>5241174

Your usage stands or falls by whether or not it successfully conveys your meaning. The rest is aesthetics.

[Anonymous No.5241215]

>>5239625
Yea

[Anonymous No.5241217]

>>5241211
forthunder for stand wordaugury to peuple these Speeche...

[Anonymous No.5241229]

>>5241217

So, failure, then - what's it feel like?

[Anonymous No.5241239]

>>5241229

[Anonymous No.5241273]

>>5241239

[Anonymous No.5241388]

>>5241122
>>5239728
I thought "I could care less" means that you don't care enough to care less about it.