Huge pet peeve. I think less of a person when they use "literally" improperly.
Why can't they just say: I mean her hair was _figuratively_ on fire!
Why can't they just say: I mean her hair was _figuratively_ on fire!
If you read the article you would understand how there's nothing improper about the usage. If you knew anything about human language you'd know that there's no such thing as an improper usage. Sheidlower is a highly respected lexicographer and his entire article subtly acknowledges this fact. The speech community uses the word in a certain way, and all who hear it understand what is being said, without even consciously realizing it. There is nothing improper or wrong about how it is being used. The amazing richness of language is due in part exactly to the kind of mechanisms that cause drift such as seen with 'literally', and it's a testament to the endless versatility of the language mechanism. On the surface at which the average person contemplates it, sitting around in their armchair, language is not a rigid, logical artifice that makes the sort of naive sense they want it to.
Read Pinker's 'The Language Instinct' for a good discussion of the topic of language mavens. My pet peeve is people like you, who have pet peeves that are grounded in your own ignorance.
Wow, that was kind of mean. I understand that you have an opinion about this topic but I don't think that's a legitimate reason to be insulting.
I don't see how it's any more insulting for me to say that my pet peeve is people like you than it is for you to say that your pet peeve is people who say 'literally'. In any event I'm not proclaiming you ignorant as an insult or name-calling -- I'm simply stating that I believe it's ignorant to think less of a person because you don't think their usage makes 'logical' sense. Language is a locus of communicative intent and its purpose is being achieved marvelously by this usage: otherwise people would not be using it.
I catch myself thinking like that sometimes and I think it's a mistake.