Guys? Literally is not meant to give emphasis to a word, it's meant to explain how it absolutely happened.

You can't go around and say stuff like "I literally can't" or "I'm literally starving", you're just not.
I hate when people use literally for no real reason...

Thank you for your time :')

I literally understood

Oh dear. :p

@rantalicious
Oh, you poor thing... That's literally the worse!

It's taken over from basically.

@helloworld
But at least basically is kind of acceptable, literally is just pure retardation

Can't I say "I'm starving, literally!" If I haven't eaten in 3 days?

@Letmecode well it's all in the naming... You can survive for 1 month... That is defined as death by starvation...

But, after three days with no nurishment your body will start to consume it's reserves (fat). To create energy from fat is harder for your body so to get the same amount of energy it will consume faster... After all fat reserves are gone your body will consume muscle, it's a kind of protein and by now your body has adapted to low income (by making you exausted and not enabling you to burn energy) so, after around a month the muscles of your primary organs go and this is death by starvation.

But keep in mind that if you do not eat for 2 days your brain will alarm you (as it is lazy and does not want to burn fat) and from day 2 you are literally starving...

So, I say I can say it and is grammatically and biologically correct....

While your statement is true, language is literally formed by the people using it.

@Letmecode I don't like back and forwards and really off topic but:

"Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake needed to maintain an organism's life."

So: no food = starvation...
My definition was biological not what you say... Try not eating for 3 days then tell me if you are hungry or staving...

So.... As I said... I'm starving, literally! :D

Evolving the meaning of words is how languages grow. If making up/misusing words wasn't okay Shakespeare literally wouldn't be Shakespeare. 😉

@Darkler although I don't like that "literally" is applied in things that are not or cannot be literal I have to agree with the Shakespeare reference...

I am figuratively writing a comment on this

Play and misuse on words amuses me so I guess it's just preference. Ironically I dislike Shakespeare.

@Darkler
I mean sure, but there are certain words that should not be changed, and while Shakespeare was highly intelligent, the people who misuse words like literally, are not (often the opposite).

Using literally as an adjective to a word that cannot be used in a figurative way is just plain retarded...

But oh well, that's just my opinion I guess

@eeeddr it's all subjective :)

@Darkler
Actually, I'm pretty sure that language these days is meant to be objective, each word having a formal, "universal" meaning. (some may have more than one possible meaning, but you know, literally is not one :p)

@eeeddr no I meant that whether a person likes the evolutions that language is making is subjective. This has always happened in language, if it didn't, books would be lame.

@mmcorreia get off devrant and go make a sandwich...

@biscuit the boss doesn't like it when I take time to eat... Remember, bee a good boss always! Especially if you are your own boss...

@Greggergalactic an excellent response if I'd ever seen one
Also kinda bugs me when people get all "it actually means this" when dealing with words that have nor colloquial meanings

From the tl;dr wikipedia

@Greggergalactic
Informal is the part you'd find on urban dictionary, so no, it doesn't.

Now this is not so often, encountering a proper grammar and linguistics rant, have a proper upvote

@Letmecode misread you for a sec. Good point though

@Greggergalactic
Informal words is one thing, I have nothing against it, but using formal words with informal meaning is dumb imo. It already has a meaning, why use it any other way?
It's like I start using dick to refer to vaginas, why would I do it?

@Greggergalactic
Oh man, that gender thing... I can't even, that's material for another rant probably in a different place.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I just offend you by assuming you were a male? :^)

What's even worse is when some popular dictionary adopts the common (stupid/idiotic) usage to mean what people intend it to mean. Some dictionary adopted meaning of literally to mean figuratively.