Language of the Day: Literally
Today we’ll look at a very commonly used word, and often misused word, in the English language!
The actual or literal definition of the adverb, literally, is “in a literal sense or manner.” In other words, literally means “using the real or original meaning of a word or phrase.”
However, in recent decades, the word, literally, is also being used as a generic intensifier to add emphasis to a sentence or phrase. This creates an unofficial secondary meaning of literally which is “used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.”
You may have heard someone say something like, “I’m literally starving!” when they’re just really hungry and not literally starving. Or if your friend says, “My teammate got injured during the game and I had to literally carry her,” they are emphasizing that they didn’t just emotionally support their teammate but also literally supported her by physically carrying her.
Before we get too confused, let’s look at some examples with photos!
Let’s consider the word, melting, while we compare the following pictures:
In the first picture, the ice-cream is literally melting according to the definition of the word.
melting: (adjective) becoming liquified by heat.
The word literally is often compared and paired with the word figuratively which is “a non-literal way to express an idea or feeling.”
In the second picture, it looks like an uncomfortably hot and sunny day. When the person in the picture gets home, he might say, “It was burning out there today. I was literally melting!”
In this example, it is not literally burning and the man is not literally melting. He is speaking figuratively to express the extreme heat he experienced outside.
This use of the word, literally, is used as an intensifier and is an example of the second definition we looked at above: “used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true.”
Other common intensifiers used in the English language are: so, too, very, really, totally, absolutely, completely, as well as other adjectives and adverbs that are used to strengthen the meaning of other expressions and add emphasis.
The word literally is most effectively used to point out something that is both unusual or unexpected as well as literal.
The first picture with the ice-cream isn’t unusual because we all expect that ice-cream will start melting once it’s taken out of the freezer. Although the ice-cream is literally melting, it is also obvious.
The third picture is more unusual because we usually don’t think of glass as literally melting, but it is! In the following example, literally is used to emphasize that the meaning isn’t figurative.
A: “Wow, the glass was actual melting!”
B: “Oh, do you mean you just poured a really hot drink into a glass or something?”
A: “No, I went to a glass molding studio, and saw the glass literally melting!”