Wait, maybe that's a good thing: "loose" (v): to free from restraint, to make less rigid, tight, or strict. (M-W)

Here's an odd one for you. Many of my younger friends say "on accident" instead of "by accident", e.g. "He didn't mean to do that. It was on accident."

It bugs me to no end; it just seems wrong.

But it's surprisingly logical: after all, we say "on purpose", so why not "on accident" for the opposite?

I don't think I will start saying or writing it that way, though!

i don't think i can agree here, at least not with the gist. in a sense, words already don't have 'real meaning' (they're just noises or scribbles depending on the medium), their meaning or communicative value is bestowed by their actual use in a specific language, place, time, etc.

if you mean to say that we can't communicate the non-figurative sense of 'literally', consider: when someone whines 'you mean figuratively, not literally', this necessarily implies that the complainer understood what was said. if they can comprehend this distinction, it would seem utility remains and the complaint is informed mostly by a resistance to change (imo).

> We really do need to take some care here or else we'll soon be spelling "lose" as "loose."

this seems like a separate issue. the words 'lose' and 'loose' are not being used interchangeably (afaik); my sense of it is that it's just an issue of transcription because the spelling is extremely similar.

I agreed that the word "literally" can be used figuratively, but this use needs to be obvious- kind of like pronouns. I personally prefer to avoid that use because I am not a particularly talented wordsmith.

Perhaps, but what I'm arguing is something slightly different: that the idea "literally used to only mean literally but recently it started being used to mean figuratively" is a myth.