For example, clip = to fasten originates from Old English `clyppan` (to embrace/clasp/surround), while clip = to cut originates somewhere Scandanavian, as in Old Norse' `klippa` (to clip/shear). Are those still homographs? I think a fair number of the list items are the result of convergent evolution.
Etymology is relevant to whether two words are cognates.
Still think this list would help every struggling learner of English.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
You may be interested in linguistic descriptivism, as opposed to linguistic prescriptivism:
We can be descriptive in saying that people use "literally" when they don't mean "literally" - we can also be descriptive when we label such people as ignorant of the meaning of the words they use.
Because that would be the worst. No one ever says something while meaning something else.
When, while sitting at the table, people ask me if I can pass them the water, I check if I can reach the bottle, I check if I'm close enough to them, then I say "yes, I can" and keep eating.
It seems like the Spanish and Portuguese could be literally taken as "what are hours?" ("intervals of sixty minutes!") (although I don't think it would be the most idiomatic way to ask that question in either language), while one German option is "how late is it?" ("not very!").
There's another German question which could be taken as "how much clock is it?", but since clocks are usually discrete objects, it might be quite a strain to try to take this as a question about something's clock-nature. (Maybe if you were looking at Dalí's Persistence of Memory, you could answer something like "this one is not very much clock".)
That position is normally termed prescriptivism, and AFAIK it's widely rejected by lexicographers and linguists and whatnot.
So are you prescribing to me that I must accept "figuratively" as a valid definition for "literally"?
My take is that language is a democratic activity. I never voted for the people who decided "they" must always be plural, and could never stand-in for a third-person singular of unknown gender. I think that use is simple, sensible, and solves a genuine problem in the language; every time I use "they" in the third-person-singular, I "vote" for that to be an acceptable use case.
On the other hand, the only reason to use the word "literally" is to say that this thing actually happened. That is the meaning of the word. Using it to mean "figuratively" doesn't fix a missing hole in the language; on the contrary, it opens up a hole, because low you don't know if the thing actually happened, or if the guy is just using the word "literally" to mean the opposite of "literally". If we just give up, and start saying "actually" instead of "literally", then eventually the same linguistic process will corrupt "actually", and all other variations, as well.
People who use the word "literally" as an intensifier are casting their vote for how to use the language. When I make fun of those people, I'm casting my vote, that I don't like their usage. I will continue to do so, and argue with anyone who disagrees with me, as long as it's practical to do so.
No, they are describing the fact that it is used that way, whether you like it or not.
That said, while I totally accept the usage, and don't have a problem with people saying "I literally died laughing" (because the phrase "I died laughing" is already on the face of it a statement of fact, and yet we have no problem understanding that it's figurative, so any modifiers -- I seriously died laughing, I totally died laughing -- are just intensifying the hyperbole), I personally don't think it should have been added to the dictionary.
People already use intensifiers when being hyperbolic (as above, "I seriously died laughing," "I totally died laughing"), we don't need to add to the definition of all of them. It's a valid part of the constellation of "intensifier + idiom," and each intensifier doesn't need to be singled out.
I think saying "I died laughing" is a fine idiom. But the continual slipping into "cranking up the volume", and having more and more words mean nothing, is bad for the language. So, I vote to oppose this.
You have a vote too. Think about the way you want the language to be, and then vote by using it that way, and / or arguing with people who use it the way you don't like.
Do you know Captain Literally?
As I said elsewhere, when someone says "I've been waiting for days" and it's actually been minutes, we don't say "days sometimes means minutes". We say they were exaggerating for effect. It's a different use of the same meaning.
I think it's the same for "literally". Hyperbolic use of the original meaning. If "literally" meant "figuratively" we would expect to see sentences that would be interpreted as literal but for the inclusion of "literally", and I don't think I have ever seen one.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...
Include me among those who find it frustrating, but the meanings of words are more or less acquired by convention, and I think my side has been outvoted on this one.
Incidentally, I think one reason people get irritated by this is that some people prefer communication to be direct, unambiguous, and straightforward without relying on a lot of subtlety, context, guessing, or interpretation. I'd bet that programmers and other technically-minded people lean this direction more. So when people complain that this sort of thing is a violation of the rules, I think on some level they know that's not true, so I'm inclined to interpret it more like a plea or protest to avoid this style of indirect communication.