Many dictionaries now list one common use of “literally” as meaning “figuratively, with emphasis”. So literally officially sometimes now literally means figuratively.
I suspect some people are literally having conniption fits about this…
I’m sorry, but your comment mixes two different types of dictionaries. You talk about “official” meanings which would be a prescriptive dictionary telling you the way you are allowed to use a word. But the dictionaries that include “figuratively” in their definitions are clearly descriptive, presenting all the ways words are commonly used.
You can’t take a descriptive dictionary and then claim it is prescriptive.
There are no prescriptive dictionaries, at least not correct ones, for living languages.
IIRC both the OED and CED list figurative uses for the word, do you know any publications considered more authoritative than those for English? Webster too, for those who prefer simplified English.
They have Académie Française which intends to control the language to an extent, in recent times focussing a lot on resisting then encroachment of English word and phrases, but IIRC their recommendations don't carry as much weight as many think and are often ignored even by government departments and other official French bodies.
The Académie do publish a dictionary every few decades though, there was a new edition recently, so there is a prescriptive dictionary for French even though it carries little weight in reality.
French is the only living language to attempt it to this extent, though the existence of one is enough to make my “there are none for living languages” point incorrect. It is difficult to pin a language down until no one really speaks it day-to-day (so it doesn't evolve at the rates commonly used languages do).
Very few of those have official force or cover much more than a subset of language properties (i.e. spelling rules), but definitely more than the "none" of my original assertion.
Isn't this more of a cultural thing, that Germans seem to agree that it is authoritative and use it as a reference?
I'm not sure what would even make a dictionary prescriptive other than an explicit declaration that it is so or, ridiculously, a law declaring the same.
I'm sorry, can you point to such a prescriptive dictionary? People can talk however they please, and dictionaries are tasked with keeping up with the vernacular.
The "literally" ship sailed centuries ago. Sorry, but that battle has been lost. Even so-called "prescriptive" dictionaries would be categorically incorrect if they ignore nearly three centuries of common vernacular.
It never has, it always will. We've already lost a host of words that meant "I'm not exaggerating, I actually mean it": "really", "very", etc. I'm going to keep up the fight.
Language is defined by its speakers, as basically a "vote". I'm going to keep voting for "literally" meaning "this actually happened" as long as it's practical, because 1) there are dozens of other ways to emphasize something 2) we need some way to say "this is not an exaggeration".
Why a quantum leap isn’t the length of an Ångstrom will always sadden me. I’m sure there are other scientific concepts you can use to describe a Great Leap Forward…
