"No cap fr fr"
Or just improve your vocabulary.
You know of a word that satisfies OP's criteria and you're not going to share it?
It's not just one word. You use the appropriate adjective for the sentence. It's many words.
Or just leave out words like literally as they do ~~literally~~ absolutely nothing.
Obviously, you use the word that expresses what you intend to express. The question is what that word would be when you want to express "literally" in the strict dictionary definition sense without ambiguity.
We had a perfectly good word, which people with decent vocabulary used properly, and then people with bad vocabulary ruined it.
Why should those who had a decent vocabulary in the first place improve theirs, instead of the people with the poor vocabulary who ruin the accepted definitions of words improve theirs?
I agree. The word "literally" was literally perfect. It was a binary descriptor. Other people's poor vocabulary ruined it, not the people who used it correctly.
We gotta stick together against the Vocabulary Philistines.
It’s not the product of having a bad vocabulary. The English language changes all the time. And “literally” not commonly being used in a figurative sense is relatively recent the figurative meaning dates back to the 1600s.
Mark Twain used the figurative literally. As did Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Louisa M. Alcott, and many more people widely considered to be among the best authors ever to have lived. I don’t think anybody has accused them of having poor vocabularies, or not using words “properly”
It even makes sense WRT the etymology, because it means “as in literature”, from the Latin “literalis” - “pertaining to words”
If you want to have a go at an intensifier for being used improperly, you’d do better to target “really”. It means “like reality”, from the Latin “realis” - “actual”
So a sentence like “I was really shitting myself” makes less sense than “I was literally shitting myself”, if we’re referencing fear rather than faeces
Well, sure, I'd want to see the exact context of the use. It would be one thing if Twain was using it that way himself, it would be another if he was putting it into a character's mouth, which would add a slight nuance.
A modern example would be the guy in Parks & Rec who used "Lit'rally" often, and with emphasis, in situations that were clearly NOT Literal. I wouldn't assume that the writer endorses the concept.
Twain:
And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.
Alcott:
The land literally flowed with milk and honey on such occasions,
Dickens:
‘Lift him out,’ said Squeers, after he had literally feasted his eyes, in silence, upon the culprit
And so on
Wow, you pulled those out, impressive! I really mean it!
I'm a big Mark Twain fan, and all it proves is that our idols can be wrong, LOL. I'm dying on this hill.
Wait ‘till i make the argument that “irregardless” is fine, actually..,
Isn't that just figuratively?
I guess OP is asking the opposite question. Renaming original literally with a new word instead of replacing current slang word literally
It is
I agree, the bastardization of Literally is one of my vocabulary pet peeves, along with Crescendo.
Literally, same
The funny thing about the figurative literally is that it being “wrong” is pretty recent and short lived. You’ll find it in many works considered some of the best literature ever written - Little Women, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield, Wuthering Heights, and many more
In German we have multiple different words that mean "literally", not all of which can be used for emphasis. There are the phrases "im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes" ("in the truest sense of the word") as well as "etwas wörtlich nehmen" ("to take something literally"), both of which are usually not used for emphasis, presumably also because they don't nearly fit into the grammatical construction of a sentence in a way that would produce emphasis. Then there is "buchstäblich" (roughly "letterish"), which means the same thing as literally and can be used in both ways, as it's an adverb. But then there is "wortwörtlich" (roughly "word-wordly"), which is also an adverb and grammatically fits into the same position, but I've never heard it being used for emphasis.
Language is weird.
Exactly
Illiteratly

"Literally" used as an intensifier dates back to the 1700s, but the prescriptivist controversy about it is very recent. People can understand that a word can have different meanings and have different uses. Except for prescriptivists, apparently.
That's the dopey example that they always use - Shakespeare made up all sorts of words - except it's clearly wrong, and you aren't Shakespeare, dummy.
Many words have immutable definitions, and they cannot be changed, period. UP cannot never mean DOWN no matter how many stupid people use it incorrectly. A DOG isn't a CAT, no matter how many stupid people can't tell the difference. The sky is Blue, even if you determine that you think it's Pink, and now Pink refers to all things Blue.
If people use an immutable word wrong, we shouldn't change the definition, we should tell the people using it wrong that they are wrong, and to stop being stupid.
We don't just agree to be as stupid as they are. That's what's wrong with the world. It's easier to go along with the stupid people, than expect them to get smarter. Or just tell them to shut the fuck up.
Once I found out that that the definition of literally has literally been changed to "literally, but sometimes figuratively", I've switched to objectively and subjectively when describing things, which aren't quite the same but I literally don't have a word anymore that means literally.
So instead of literally you could use objectively. I like that no one is going to use objectively as slang because it's kind of a clunky, obtuse word that doesn't literally roll off the tongue.
People already are using objectively the same way as literally.
For real
Then that word will just get used sarcastically.
No cap fr fr
Actually, though.
The correct answer is to make incorrect usage of the word "literally" socially unacceptable. Be fucking mean about it.
I would argue that, uses of literally, in the literal sense, in common language, is rarely used, any more. Mostly because, If you have to add "believe me" at the end of your sentence, it makes you seem sus. And "literally", in common language, is usually added to the end, in the same way, the sarcastic, and facetious, presentations use. So we've adopted different signifiers, mostly, anyway. People usually say, "you are not going to believe what happened to me today ". Even the sarcastic etc uses are dying out, in a time when, extreme positions aren't, easily taken at face value for being over the top, or, easily definable as sarcasm etc, which is what sarcasm relies heavily on. I think, all the extreme stuff going on, is making it almost impossible to even use literally, in almost either application. I'm sad! It's such a fun word to say.
Showerthoughts
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.