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Brilliant!
So virtually indistructable means literally almost indistructable.
I love English.
But it does suffer as a means of communication.
On the other hand, what fun is it if there isn't enough ambiguity to play with??
The French go to great extreemes to keep their language pure, but I do not think that appropriate.
But at it's core - all communication worth having is art and thus must be beautiful, whimsical, inventive, sometimes informitave, and yes - ambiguous in measure.
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Indeed. Veritably so!
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Virtually so 
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PB 369,783 wrote: "We literally shat ourselves" for example. I'm off home as this has wound me up.
Next time just wear your brown pants[^] and you won't have to go home to change.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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PB 369,783 wrote: I'm off home as this has literally wound me up.
FTFY
What me worry?
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I thing its terribly good. 
Wisdom is to see the things as they really are.
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Grammar and vocabularies are snapshots in time. The human language does not evolve from committee. If it did, we would all still be using those silly British spellings for words.
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Yes I agree with the language evolving, what I don't agree with is a word that is now ambiguous when it's sole purpose is to clear up ambiguity. If I was actually pulling my hair out I would say 'I'm literally pulling my hair out', now however that sentence doesn't tell you whether I am or not.
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Well..., the dictionary is wrong, people are wrong, google is wrong, internet is wrong. I ONLY use "literally" for the literal sense and so should everyone else.
That's the thing with slang and casual conversation. It's what sticks with us the most, and sometimes the wrong thing sticks. I used to say... "don't got no money for this..." which sounds like I have no money for this, but since it's double negative, I'm actually saying I DO have money.
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For your own sanity I'd recommend that you'd consider the precedence of this misuse of English.
I've seen the words change meaning within the context of the same sentence.
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Good synopsis. 
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Has anyone of you, my dear before-posters, bothered to actually read the article ?
It isn't that the meaning or usage has changes in the last few years:
Quote: quickly: 1) there is no such thing as "the wrong definition". Well, I mean, there is, obviously. If the dictionary included the definition "pomegranate" or "a sort of reddish-purple", then it would be wrong. But the dictionary can't be wrong if it is reporting a common usage, which it is, because that is the dictionary's job. And 2) this isn't some modern thing that's fallen into the language in the last shower, like "lulz" or "yolo". As I mentioned in the last piece I wrote about it, "literally" has been literally used non-literally for literally more than two centuries:
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Klaus-Werner Konrad wrote: reddish-purple
You're making that up! 
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PB 369,783 wrote: if literally means not literally then how can we emphasise that "We literally
shat ourselves"
'Searches me ...
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I always turn to David Mitchell's solution[^] for inspiration at times like this.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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PB 369,783 wrote: What do others think of this?
Attempting to make a living language static is doomed to failure. It is unrealistic and ignores the nature of a changing environment that requires new words and new usages.
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As an avid reader of English literature there are two particular phrases that you will find in Victorian novels that meant something completely different in their day:
To make love to - to talk to a woman in a kindly manner and to flirt with said woman.
To know - what we would nowadays refer to as making love.
So language is very dynamic and even Shakespeare invented words for his works.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I am now quite discombobulated by your vernacular vulgarisation of mother tongue.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Really? So you've never used "Really?" in the sense to question the reality or veracity of something?
"Literally?" is used in such a sense.
You've got your knickers in a bunch over nothing.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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You make an excellent point Ahmed. But I think the complaint is that "literally" has had a rather special meaning of "not metaphorically". So if you say "I literally fell flat on my face", you're pointing out that not only did you "fall flat on your face" in the idiom (failed), but, ironically enough, you also literally fell flat on your face (ouch). (Oops, I used the word 'literally' in defining it.... infinite loop alert.)
The complaints here are not that language doesn't evolve. As you point out, the same decay happened with 'really'. I'd complain as well about "awesome". Personally, I've avoided using the word since it became the valley girl way of saying one is excited by something. I've started saying "awe inspiring" to emphasize the truly awesome nature of what I'm referring to .
So when one meaning started being diluted from its original intent by exaggeration and overuse, I'd like to find another that I can use in its place. Any suggestions for replacing "literally"?
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Seriously? (lol  )
Any of these[^] should do. Precisely, indisputably, veritably, strictly and faithfully seem especially appropriate as synonyms to literally.
As for "awesome" usage, the way I've heard it used means "extremely impressive", (as in Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker) which seems to me to be correct usage.
But, then, what do I know?
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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There are synonyms, but they're falling like flies as people abuse their meaning
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You should have ended with "I'm off home as this has literally wound me up"
Cheers,
विक्रम
"We have already been through this, I am not going to repeat myself." - fat_boy, in a global warming thread 
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Why?
I studied the cr@p out of the English language, and have lots of luverley pieces of paper telling me how wonderful I am with it, so I'm in a position to reveal to you a secret that very few know:
There is no such thing as the English language!
All English languages died out more than 1500 years ago. What we speak now is a combination of West Saxon, Jute, Latin, French, etc, etc, etc. -- and I believe that we even have a Klingon word or two in our dictionaries, now.
I've gone incredibly deeply into this, but have not found a single word of any English language that is still in use -- they all have their roots in other languages.
The huge majority of the words we adopted from all these other language are not used "properly" at all, as in they are not used as they are/were used in the original languages.
Language drift (which is what you're complaining about, even though the alleged misuse of "literally" is not principally language drift) is just the tip of the iceberg in the English abuse of other peoples' words.
So don't worry about it.
As I've explained to people a million times, using exaggeration for emphasis is a part of all languages, and exaggerating a situation by using "literally" is far more normal and acceptable than stealing all your words from other languages then misusing most of them.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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