Love it or hate it, nonliteral ‘literally’ is here to stay: Here’s why English will survive
- Written by Valerie M. Fridland, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno
Did your head literally explode? No, but you can say it did.John Lund/Stone via Getty ImagesFew words so rile language purists as the use of the adverb “literally” in a figurative sense, as in, “That movie literally blew my mind.”
But as a linguist who studies how English has changed over the centuries, I can promise...