Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
The word "literally" has been forever ruined by people who use it to mean "figuratively." Worse, there is now literally no way to actually convey the original meaning of the word "literally" in a concise, clear way.
You have to say something like, "A is literally 10 times bigger than B...and I mean that ACTUALLY literally." And then people will STILL assume that you're speaking figuratively.
Wait are you being literal right now? Like, actually??
Yes. And by actually, I of course mean facetiously, because language changes.
That's how language works.
Many words shifted meaning over time, some gained connotation, some lost it, some turned to something completely different.
Just look at the word "gay", it shifted from "happy" to "haha homosexuals are outwardly happy, so we call them gay semi-ironically" to "homosexual". The homophobic connotation was added, then the original meaning got lost.
You can complain, sure, but just read an old text from the 17th century and try to find a sentence that means exactly the same today as it did back then.
I'm fine with language evolving; my issue is that there used to be a word that succinctly conveyed a particular idea, and now there is no way to concisely convey that idea in English.
"Gay" changing its meaning isn't the same thing, because there are still plenty of ways of saying "happy" in English.
Are there ways to say exactly this kind of happy? I'm pretty sure, happy and gay didn't mean exactly the same. Synonyms rarely are drop in replacement.
But yes, there is a gap now. That might get filled with another word, or people get better at discerning ironic and unironic meaning. Or maybe people stop using it in this way - groovy or rad aren't exactly common today either.
I never called things “gay” growing up, I found it disparaging and offensive.
I came out as queer in my 20s. Now I ironically say “shit’s gay” and stuff like that all the time hahaha
“That’s our word”
It’s like an angel getting its wings, except with my first same-sex experience I got the card.
Literally can mean literally ( My girlfriend literally stabbed me in the back. I'm bleeding out and need an ambulance. )
It can also mean emphatically ( My girlfriend stabbed me in the back. She emptied my bank account, shot my dog and left town with my best friend. )
I won't use it in the latter way, and will sometimes use the adjective proverbial ( proverbially ) if my metaphor could be plausibly read as literal. ( I could drive to Maryland and assassinate Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh for a fresh cruller right now. )