this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
1541 points (92.3% liked)

Microblog Memes

5716 readers
3683 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
ReadyUser31@lemmy.world
aeronmelon@lemmy.world
1541
Pronouns (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 months ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
481 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] candybrie@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No one uses literally to mean figuratively. They use it to emphasize regardless of if what they're emphasizing includes figurative language. Nearly every word that means something similar to "in actual fact" undergoes this semantic drift (actually, really, etc).

"She literally exploded at me." is similar in meaning to "She totally exploded at me." Not so much to "She figuratively exploded at me."

[โ€“] Promethiel@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Nearly every word that means something similar to "in actual fact" undergoes this semantic drift (actually, really, etc).

I looked into this for 3 minutes and found examples in multiple languages.

Neat.

New expression-insight remix into the human condition connected; We literally really actually feel the need to be sure we're understood, no matter the hyperbolic lengths gone to, huh?