this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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My two are Literally, and Crescendo. I really hate it when they are used wrong, and now the wrong answers are considered acceptable. That means Literally actually holds no meaning at all, and by changing the definition of Crescendo, the last 500 years of Western Music Theory have been changed by people who have no understanding of music at all.
Literally was being used as an intensifier in both cases where it was being used to signify the truth of something and in the absurdist manner. So, no, it didn't lose all meaning. So long as you're not emphasizing something too absurd to be considered real, the original meaning still holds. And if someone uses the word to emphasize something that could be real, though unlikely, they'll likely get the appropriate follow-up.
On the Crescendo one, do you also get mad about forte? Cause basically the same thing happened there. And no one will confuse the music term for the colloquial term in either case.
I hadn't really thought about forte, but now that you mention it, yeah, that one pisses me off, too. Thinking about it, I do avoid using that term.
And Literally is supposed to mean that some thing is truly as described, to differentiate between exaggeration. So when it is used as exaggeration, it causes the sort of confusion that means exactly what the literal meaning is literally supposed to avoid.
Heaven forbid someone use a colloquialism! How will they ever be understood?
(For the sake of clarity I feel I must point out that I do not believe Heaven should, in fact, forbid such a practice. I fear without this clarification my first sentence is impossible to understand.)
You shouldn't use religious slang in your writing, it offends the Puritans.
"Heaven" originally meant "the visible sky" so this is fine.