Had a weird dream about stairs that made me realize people use the word 'literally' wrong all the time

I dreamed I was walking up this endless staircase, each step had a word written on it. Got to the top and realized the word 'literally' keeps getting used for stuff that's not actually true. My coworker said 'I literally died laughing' yesterday when she just coughed on her coffee. It bugs me because words should mean what they say. Had this epiphany at 3am after the dream woke me up. Anyone else notice people overusing metaphor stuff as facts?

3 comments

3 Comments

xena_brown5027d agoMost Upvoted

oh man, that dream is a whole mood. i feel you on that one hard, people just throw "literally" around like confetti these days and it loses all its power.

the_lucas26d ago

My high school english teacher Mrs. Patterson would have had a field day with the "literally" thing. She drilled into us that when you stretch a word past its actual meaning, you lose the ability to communicate clearly. Like if someone says their head "literally exploded" then what do you say when you see a real head explosion on the news? @xena_brown50 you're right that it gets thrown around like candy now. I saw someone say their coffee maker "literally saved their life" this morning. Like no, your caffeine fix was nice but your heart was fine before. Words need some weight left in them or we can't actually tell each other what's real anymore.

price.tara27d ago

Pick up on that pattern pretty often myself actually. Saw someone online say their cat "literally exploded with joy" when they opened a can of tuna. No, no it didn't. Your cat just got happy. Words get stretched so thin they lose their punch, and then you cant even describe something wild that actually happened without people rolling their eyes.