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Comment by duggan | Hacker News Reader

“BGP is literally the glue of the Internet” - I think you’ll find BGP is figuratively the glue of the Internet ;)

It depends on how one defines virtual glue. But, hey, the whole thing might be moot.

I'm in this camp. To me, 'literally' has only one meaning. If it doesn't, the word loses all utility. He could say 'is essentially the glue', I suppose.

You are outdated to the extent that you would have been behind the times in the 1680s where the word was already being used to mean 'what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense'.

That's fine, as long as you have an alternative ready that takes the meaning that the old "literally" had when I do want the statement to be taken, er, literally.

If you don't, then it makes a lot of sense to defend literal from non-literal usage.

What's the alternative that I can use and be understood?

Context.

"Hello, 911? Yeah, I've got an unconscious person here. His face is literally purple."

Did I mean literally literally, or figuratively? And how can the previous question have meaning?

You remove the emphasizer and just say: "His face is purple."

And then they say, "literally purple?"

The problem with this argument is that you are hypothesizing a case that, if it were going to be happening, would be happening now, not in the future. Yet it does not. There is no great epidemic of confused 911 operators because they can't make out whether or not someone on the other end used literally "correctly".

While one can speculate on why you might be wrong about this being a problem, an examination of the world around us rather strongly suggests that there's no question that there is something fatally wrong with your argument.

There's no epidemic of any single problem being caused by any imprecision in grammar. But there are lots of little, similar problems -- perhaps in non-emergency situations -- that cause predictable, avoidable confusion because people insist on breaking the use of important words.

If your point is that "we can make it impossible to communicate the concept 'literally' until there's an epidemic of deaths over it", then your threshold is in a very, very wrong place.

It was your implicit threshold you were setting with your argument, not mine. While I am gratified that you so thoroughly demolished your own argument for me, you might want to consider your arguments a bit more tactically in the future.

The real problem being caused here is well below the noise threshold and certainly not worth trying to play "Holier than thou" at people on the internet.

>It was your implicit threshold you were setting with your argument, not mine

That wasn't my threshold; that was an example of a confusion that couldn't be disambiguated without clear terms for literal vs figurative; it's just that it had unusually large implications for a scenario that require fast, unambiguous communication. (I guess we don't have to care about these scenarios?)

Your own implicit threshold of "if someone doesn't die because if it, I can fuck up the communicative ability of a language however I feel like" is so thoroughly stupid, I doubt you even believe it yourself, yet feel the need to argue for it anyway.

In any case, I'm less concerned with who makes the best tactical moves than on discerning the best idea presented. As it stands, I don't yet see any justification for "let's get rid of this useful disambiguating feature for literal vs figurative" -- but feel free to keep offering them; maybe your knowledge of "tactics" could come in handy here, thought I doubt it. Tactical arguments don't make a language useful. Rather, substance does.

And any time you ever get around to telling me how to indicate the old meaning of "literally" you just let me know. I get that it's not a real high priority for you right now (based on how you think), and I'm not holding by breath or anything, but it would be really cool if you could pull it off. Thanks.

The thing is it isn't a choice we are making now. It was made over 400 years ago and it works.

There are actually strong reasons to think ambiguity in certain cases is an asset in a language not a hindrance. This talk goes into it in part: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_language_and_thoug...

Drop the word, or use one of: actually, truly, really.

Well, they make a valid point in that a word carries with it implicit attributes that should also be taken into account.

It's what really separates bad writing from very bad writing.

Then again, it's also a perspective thing.

Curious why such a specific time period. Is there a source for 1680s? The 17th century would probably be sufficient otherwise.

OED has the source if you have access to it, which I don't or I would provide it here.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=literally&allow...

Etymonline does not reproduce the OED, but it does source from it and sometimes you get lucky.

Thanks for the link! It's fairly interesting, too. That citation specifically reads: 'Erroneously used in reference to metaphors, hyperbole, etc., even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate "what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense" (1680s), which is opposite to the word's real meaning.'

So for one, it states clearly 'erroneously used' (and indeed has this specific wording, 'strongest admissible sense').

Further, gives the 1680 number, but doesn't actually source that any further (general writing periods of Dryden and Pope? Perhaps, though not clear).

Anyway, that's fun. I miss the OED, but it's the sort of massive tome that's impractical to always have on hand.

You do realise there's more than one meaning for "glue" these days, presumably (including "something that binds together")?

There's also more than meaning for "literally" these days.

With two inflection points in the phraseology, you can literally reverse your glue.

That only makes it more likely that what was said has a semantically correct meaning though (or is that what you meant?).

He meant that there is literally only one definition for literally. Any other use of the word cuts away at its meaning (like what happened in that context).

Not really. It is literally something that binds the internet together (i.e. one of the common definitions of the word glue).

Now we can get into what "bind" means.

Or we can stop pretending like we're even a little bit confused as to what was meant at any point along the way here... natural language exists to facilitate communication and understanding, not pointless arguments over the form of idiomatic expressions.

Merriam-Webster "Ask the Editor": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai_VHZq_7eU

Also worth watching, "The History of English in 10 Minutes": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rexKqvgPVuA

I think it would be a stretch to suggest that the use of "literally" here was for the sake of hyperbole. It seems pretty clear that it's intended as an analogy.

Interesting videos though, didn't realize I'd stepped on another unexploded grammar mine from The War. I really should know better at this stage.

It's literally the figurative glue.

Here's a good read: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the...

'literally' has literally become an overused cliche that does't mean anything and isn't used properly most of the time.

you can almost always take it out of the sentence it is being used in and the sentence is easier to read and makes more sense.

a new pet-hate word for me (nothing on you OP!)

Obligatory The Oatmeal reference: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally

I think BGP is more of a mucus than glue

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