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Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by Godel_unicode on Saturday September 05, 2020 @04:04PM (#24386473)
Oh wow, I know this isn't what you meant but wouldn't it be great if we could use literally and litterally to mean literally and figuratively??
Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by srtjstjsj on Saturday September 05, 2020 @06:45PM (#24387446)
We can, but everyone uses literally to mean litterally.
Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by dllthomas on Saturday September 05, 2020 @07:46PM (#24387741)
A digression, but I don't think this is actually the case.

I readily acknowledge that literally is often used when a sentence is figurative; that's not the same thing. For literally to be used to mean figuratively the utterer would be worried that, but for the presence of "literally", the sentence might be understood to be literal.

I contend that the role "literally" usually plays is that of an intensifier. I believe it plays that role through ordinary application of hyperbole: the utterance "X is literally Y" is usually meant as "X is very Y; X is so Y it is almost as if it were literally Y; but of course you understand that it was not, in fact, literally Y - we're all reasonable people here."

In much the same way, when someone says "You left me waiting for days" and it's been a handful of minutes, we don't say "'days' sometimes means 'minutes'" - we say that people exaggerate.

I recognize that I'm disagreeing with at least one dictionary; I believe they got it wrong.

And I won't claim that there is literally no single person who in fact uses "literally" to mean "figuratively" - but I have never encountered such an example and I believe it to be rare enough that we can consider it an error, even in a descriptivist treatment.

Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by jfoutz on Saturday September 05, 2020 @04:15PM (#24386542)
Ha! And punish my poor spelling even more.
Re:Mathematicians should stop naming things after each other by DonHopkins on Saturday September 05, 2020 @04:35PM (#24386665)
I thought you were making a valid point that spelling drifts too!