This is a contentious one, and a lot of people seem very invested in being wrong about it, including Neil Patrick Harris and Jon Hamm in the video above, but no matter what they say, “literally” can mean “figuratively.”
You can tell because people use it that way all the time. “I could literally eat a horse,” they say, and you know they don’t mean they could actually eat a horse. Language changes like that. The word “terrific” used to mean “terrifying.” Now it means “awesome.” The word “awesome” used to mean a feeling of severe fear or dread. Now it means terrific.
Literally used figuratively isn’t even new! According to Merriam-Webster, it’s been used that way since 1769. F. Scott Fitzgerald did it. So did Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, who wrote “she took me to herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained spirits” in the 1800s.
Check out this post for more information, or I will literally come to your house and click the link for you.
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