Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 6

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August 6

It's literally the antonym of itself.

Several dictionaries have acknowledged the common misuse of the word literally and now list "figuratively" or "virtually" as one of its definitions. (e.g., Merriam-Webster) I think this is ludicrous, but this is not the debate. What I am wondering is if there are any other words which are their own antonyms. Thank you.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

There are some listed in our article on auto-antonym, antagonym, Janus word, enantiodrome, self-antonym, antilogy, addad, enantiosemy, enantionymy or antilogy... ---Sluzzelin talk 02:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Cleave. Compare definitions 1 and 2 here. To wit, cleave can mean "to adhere firmly" or "to divide". --Jayron32 02:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

"Here" and "there" can both be opposite places, depending on perspective. This may be neither here nor there, but the odd pro wrestler also finds the literal misuse ludicrous. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:42, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

WHAAOE! Thanks.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:58, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Your welcome. Rather then link to the fifth Grammar Slam, I'll just say it's out their. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Another one, which I assumed was on that list above, is "old". If someone wants their "old face" back, they may want the one they had when they were young, or when they were old. Or, in the context I just used it there that reminded me of here, the face someone else borrowed from her, then later stopped using. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I hate it when people abuse the English language, despite being a native speaker. Two overly used words include 'like' (meaning 'such as') and 'literally'. Even news readers misuse 'literally', inserting it into a metaphor, or simile, does not in fact emphasise the applicability of the figure of speech. It just makes you look like a simpleton, and the shame of it all, is that the error does not occur to the general public of today. Does that mean then that the general public are lingual simpletons? Plasmic Physics (talk) 05:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Yep. "Decimate" bothers me. It originally meant a precise 10% reduction. It now seems to mean something more like 90%, or even a complete destruction of an enemy or similar. HiLo48 (talk) 06:03, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

What a random thing to say. You're such a random guy, HiLo. Like, totally random. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The only reply I have to that is "Apple other better did whether is!" Plasmic Physics (talk) 07:41, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

That's much closer. Thanks for not choosing "monkey" for the noun. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Chinese has a word, 简直, that is in a similar situation as "literally". The word's literal meaning is "totally/completely/literally", as in "he's literally crazy". However, it's usually (I would say almost always) used to mean the opposite: that the sentence is hyperbole. 他疯了 ("he is insane") could mean that he's actually insane, whereas 他简直疯了 ("he's literally insane") means he's not actually insane.

In English, I see no reason why "literally" can't or shouldn't be used metaphorically. Similar words have been used metaphorically for a long time: "I'm totally gonna kill him", "he's completely crazy", etc. --50.46.159.94 (talk) 08:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Because "literally" is the precise antithesis of "metaphorically". To use it metaphorically, in a phrase such as "I was so angry, I literally exploded", would be to say "I was so angry that I didn't just feel like I was exploding, I really, actually, physically, literally blew up into thousands of pieces of bloody flesh and shattered and charred bone". And that would be a lie, and lying offends anyone who thinks about stuff like this. Not every instance of someone saying something that isn't exactly true can be swept under the carpet with "Cool down, he was just speaking metaphorically". More often than not, they're just mistaken in their choice of word. We're all humans; it happens. A reasonable education in what words actually - yes, literally - mean, doesn't go astray, but one doesn't hold one's breath these days. Like when people say something is "the most unique" whatever. There's only ever one US President, one UK Prime Minister, one Danish monarch, etc. That makes each occupant unique in their own context. That's what "unique" means - not just "very unusual", but there is exactly and only one of its kind. So, which one of these heads of state is the "most" unique? Doesn't really compute, does it. Unless, of course, you use the standard fallback of "you know what I meant". Oh, that's right, I forgot. It used to be the speaker's responsibility to ensure their message was transmitted clearly; now, it's somehow become the listener's responsibility to work it out, which often means gleaning some scrap of meaning from words apparently chosen at random from a hat. I suppose I should be surprised at this turn of events, but I'm not. That's because absolutely everything is "amazing" these days, which means that absolutely nothing is amazing. So, back to square 1. "Amazing" has become an empty, vacuous, trite nothing. Not amazing at all. It's its own antonym. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

"Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool." InedibleHulk (talk) 09:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you being sarcastic, dude? Adam Bishop (talk) 21:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

(In related news, my new Foundation For the Prevention of Polysemy is accepting applications. With your help, we can end contextual dependence!). SemanticMantis (talk) 19:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

You've just described language change. Speech errors of the type you described are responsible for creating every word in every human language. There's no reason to believe they're any more common now than in the rest of history. --Bowlhover (talk) 22:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The recent use of "literally" to mean "literally the exact opposite of 'literally'" is one of two language peeves I allow myself. Yes, language use evolves, and English in particular does novel and crazy things that make it fun to use; but I have to draw a line at wholesale instantaneous meaning inversion (my other peeve is when people use the phrase "I could care less" to mean "I could not care less.") See previous refdesk discussion here. Sigh; I suppose I'll give the community another link to the Gayroller and walk away from the little voice in my head spouting obscenities and calling for literal figurative war against the hideous and stupid bastards who use these terms. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 19:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

My inner anti-pedant badly wants to hat this sad trail of peevery. Words mean what they mean, guys, not what you want them to mean, or what your teacher said they mean, or even what your favourite dictionary says they mean. Well, they usually do mean all those things, but they often also mean what people use them to mean. --ColinFine (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

That is all true, Colin. Meanings of words do indeed change, sometimes to the direct opposite of what they formerly meant. But is it OK for any individual to suddenly start using "banana" to mean "nuclear holocaust"? Sure, there's no law against it, but there's no chance he'd be understood, so it's pointless. The real issue comes when people use a word they've heard and think they sort of understand, but they don't really understand and neither do most of their interlocutors, to mean something it never meant before. That's just theft, fuelled by ignorance (itself usually fuelled by lack of decent education), and by lack of any sort of discipline in seeking out the most appropriate word/s in any given situation. People generally want the best of everything, subject to affordability. Well, words cost nothing, yet there's an "anything goes" attitude. Maybe if we charged for the use of words, they'd have more of a value and people would choose them more wisely. I must put my mind to implementing such a scheme; I'll make myself the Word Tax Collector-General, naturally. One cent for every word used correctly, ten cents in all other cases. Sounds fair to me. It'll make people think twice about the endless vapid chatter in which they engage. Speaking of which, bye now.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a reminder that we, our teachers and our dictionary compilers are people, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:02, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• I have never understood the objection to the use of "literally" in this manner. We allow for all sorts of exaggeration, hyperbole, and other non-literal meanings in English. Why, among all hyperbolic language we use (and to the great benefit of English speakers, for it adds to the variety and depth and poetry of our language ), the hyperbolic use of the word "literally" is singled out for derision. Leave people alone who use it in exaggeration, or at least start campaigns against the use of hyperbole in general, if you did that you'd at least be consistent. The incongruous way indignation is heaped upon that one usage is really annoying. --Jayron32 23:11, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• Words need consistent meaning if they are to work effectively. The problem with the "literally" situation is that when I then use the word "literally" with its traditionally correct meaning, those who think it means the opposite will misunderstand me. I know that. They don't. So I can't use the word the way I have always used it because of its misuse by ignorant people. The dumbos have stolen a word from me. HiLo48 (talk) 23:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• So, what your saying is that every time someone uses any word in for exaggerated effect, for hyperbole, they're dumbos who stole your language? That's a rather boring and trite outlook on the English language. What a fantastically boring world where words must never be used except in a literal sense, and there's no room for hyperbole at all. Where we can't call someone "a giant among men" and not have everyone think he's 20 feet tall. Where we can't call someone a captain of industry because they hold no formal military commission. Where we cannot speak of being out to sleep by a boring movie, or where our excitable children can't be described as bouncing off walls, or really, any other poetic use of the language because the entire English speaking world must be on walk on eggshells for mortal fear of stealing words from HiLo48. Or maybe, we can allow people to use exaggeration and not pretend we don't understand them when they are doing so... --Jayron32 00:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not talking about exaggeration. HiLo48 (talk) 01:03, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, but people who use the word "literally" in an exaggerated way are, and don't merit your scorn for doing so any more than any of the examples above. --Jayron32 01:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• They aren't using it in an exaggerated way. They are using it in a way the reverses its meaning. And they're doing it in ignorance. Should I pander to that ignorance, and change my usage to theirs? HiLo48 (talk) 02:18, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• Why do you assume that it is ignorance? Why must everyone who uses the word in an exaggerated matter be a "dumbo" and exhibit "ignorance". It is the sign of an intelligent and creative mind that is able to use words in creative ways and is able to expand the meaning of a word beyond its literal definition, especially when using words in hyperbole, exaggeration, sarcasm, irony, and the like. I am gobsmacked that you assume that this mysterious "they" (and do you mean "all of humanity". "They" is rather vague) is somehow incapable of the use of language in that manner. That can't be what you mean, so I am forced into the untenable position (and yet it is the only one you leave me to conclude) that, while you accept that "they" are capable of using language in hyperbole, exaggeration, irony, etc., that "they" are singularly incapable of doing so with a single word among the millions of such words in English. I am still confused why you can allow that people are being hyperbolic in other areas of speech, with other words, and yet the word "literally" is immune to such creative usages, and instead it must either only be used in non-hyperbolic speech, lest anyone using it thus is a "dumbo" and "ignorant". I still don't understand how you can accept the existence of hyperbole, and yet deny that anyone could so use it with this one word. --Jayron32 02:38, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• The OED has a good definition: "c. colloq. Used to indicate that some (freq. conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’. They agree with you that it reverses the sense, but I don't. It doesn't mean "figuratively"; nobody says "This passage should be understood literally" when they mean it should be understood literally. It's just used to emphasize figures of speech. Nevertheless I don't like it, because I'd like to be able to say "It was literally freezing in there" and have people understand that the temperature was below the freezing point of water. Words such as "totally" and "absolutely" don't lose comprehensibility in their original senses when their used for emphasis.

I might add, HiLo48, that no one is asking you to change your usage. However, there are times when you can't rely on people to understand "literally" literally. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 02:53, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Jayron, there's plenty of scope for hyperbole and metaphor in our language, and always will be. The interplay of literal vs metaphorical utterances is part of what makes language fun. But when you introduce the word "literally" as a way of being metaphorical - the very thing that it is NOT - you muddy the waters. The word contains a guarantee that whatever it's used with is NOT metaphorical, but is really, actually true. That is a special property of the word, that is not present in "absolutely" or "completely" or "totally" or others. Saying "I literally exploded" when you really mean "I metaphorically exploded" would be like saying "JFK was metaphorically assassinated in Dallas" when you really mean "JFK was literally assassinated in Dallas". You'd never use "metaphorically" to downplay something that actually happened, so why is the reverse any different? If people had a wider vocabulary, they'd find plenty of other and more appropriate ways of hyperbolizing than the misuse of "literally". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:38, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

If I may interject, I would use the adverb 'metaphorically' when the metaphor is uncommon, to the point of possibly being taken in a literal sense. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

No, you most certainly may not interject!  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:33, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

"Recently, strangers I meet seem particularly peeved by people who use `literally' to mean `figuratively,' the ones who say things like, `He literally exploded with rage.' As is often the case, though, such abuses have a long and esteemed history in English. The ground was not especially sticky in "Little Women" when Louisa May Alcott wrote that `The land literally flowed with milk and honey.' Tom Sawyer was not turning somersaults on piles of money when Mark Twain described him as `literally rolling in wealth.' Jay Gatsby was not shining when Fitzgerald wrote that he `literally glowed.' Such examples are easily come by, even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate.

How did literally come to mean the opposite of what it originally meant, either `word for word' or `exactly'? By the late 17th century, `literally' was being used as an intensifier for true statements. Jane Austen wrote of being `literally rocked in bed on a stormy night.' In such examples, `literally' is being used for the sake of emphasis alone. Eventually, though, `literally' began to be used to intensify statements that were themselves figurative or metaphorical. You can find examples throughout the 19th century, but no one seems to have objected until the early 20th. In 1909, the satirist Ambrose Bierce included the term in "Write it Right," a little blacklist of literary faults. `It is bad enough to exaggerate,' he wrote, `but to affirm the truth of the exaggeration is intolerable.'

[...]

Usage writers often single out one of the meanings [of Janus words] as wrong, although the right definition is simply the older one or the one more frequent when 18th-century grammarians began to examine language systematically. In fact, the literal meaning of `literal' is something like `according to the letter.' So when we use `literally' to refer to something other than individual letters, we're already walking down the figurative path. If we end up with people eating curry so hot their mouths are literally on fire, how surprised can we be? And why don't we also complain about using the word `really' to refer to things that aren't real? In "Little Women," when Meg moans that `It's been such a dismal day; I'm really dying for some amusement,' she's not the one who's really dying.

The one sensible criticism of the way `literally' is often used is that it can lead to confusing or silly-sounding results. In this case, the answer is simple. Don't write silly-soundingly."

Jesse Sheidlower in an NPR interview, 2005. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The Devil can quote Scripture for his purpose. Calling on hallowed names for support suggests that every single word they ever wrote is some kind of holy writ. It's not. You can't get much more hallowed than Shakespeare, but if we wrote and spoke the way he did, we'd fail most exams miserably, before being laughed out of town. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:17, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that Austen was using literally for emphasis alone in the example above. I've been in beds that actually physically were rocked by storms before. DuncanHill (talk) 22:23, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Loan collection

My wife just had one of her works accepted into a loan collection which has made me think about the term. I looked it up and see that a loan collection is simply described as a collection of works that are loaned by the owners for public display. But I've heard this term used with a sense of distinction about it. And considering my wife's work had to be voted on to be in the loan collection, it's obviously not that simple. So can anyone tell me how this became, in a broad sense, a matter of merit instead of just the literal act of loaning an object? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 17:30, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Especially odd considering the other meaning of the term, where somebody keeps calling your home night and day to get you to pay off on a loan in which you are in default, or, in the case of a loan shark, they break your legs. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

That's debt collection. (Some people do call 'debt collection' 'loan collection, but they are abusing language -- the collector is not collecting a loan, but a debt ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 18:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

If you really want to get picky, he's collecting payment for a debt, not the debt itself. StuRat (talk) 18:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you have your own answer. People in the art world only use the word "loan collection" if it's something that is somewhat competitive and exclusive, i.e. the good stuff that people want to see. I could loan out a collection of my doodles, but nobody would be talking about my "loan collection," and it would be basically wrong of me to bill it as such to the art world. If you search google for /art loan collection/ you'll see all kinds of universities and museums that have prestige and selectiveness associated with their loan collections. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)