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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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Mark_Wallace wrote: is just the tip of the iceberg in the English abuse of other peoples' words.
I've seen this in my country as well. Where they've even taken the names of things into English from my own mother tongue (Afrikaans) and used similar sounding words which have totally different ideas behind them. Not even in the same vein as the original concept. Then to make matters worse, the misused words become so general as to reflect back on the original language and change the name itself.
A prime example: White Rhino. A White Rhino is (usually) coloured darker than a Black Rhino. Seems to be due to someone hearing the Dutch/Afrikaans "wijde/wye bek" (translated Wide Mouthed to distinguish it from the other type's narrower upper lip) and thinking "white". The name stuck, and over the course of a century became so much used as to change the original name - now even in Afrikaans it's known as "Wit Renoster" ~ White Rhinoceros. Where the "black" came from seems a bit fuzzy, but might be a spin-off of this misused name.
I'm not too concerned about some word changing meaning due to it's misuse. As you've alluded: the entire "English" language is (at best) borrowed from other languages, even (more usually) convoluted from the original meanings. So what's one more word going down such slippery slope?
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Another good one with Dutch is "Hoek van Holland" becoming "the Hook of Holland".
"Holland Corner", Shirley.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Hoek
Good point, though to be fair: "hoek" can mean a corner as well as a hook (like in fishing). Usually the context makes the difference in these cases, but obviously such ambiguity can cause problems.
Edit:
Scratch that - just did a bit of research and found: Actually, you've just come across one which has changed in Afrikaans from the original Dutch. In Dutch it's usual to use haak instead of hoek to indicate a sharp curved pointy object. In Afrikaans, hoek is preferred as the noun, while haak is usually used as the verb (like in "to hook a fish with a hook" ~ "om 'n vis te haak met 'n hoek"). I wonder if it was actually a borrowed word from English into Afrikaans? The "hoek" I mean, wouldn't be surprised.
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We have had exactly the same trend in Norwegian. It is not an import from English: The words are quite different - "literally" = "bokstavlig talt" (literally: spoken letter by letter). "Bokstavlig talt" has taken the meaning of "almost".
I guess we just have to accept that language evolves. Are there anyone else around remembering when the Internet was definitely NOT an internet? An internet is (or rather: was) a network for interconnecting a heterogenous set of networks, employing dissimilar network protocols (or at least disjunct addressing schemes, like separate X.25 networks internetted through X.75).
At the next Networking Department cocktail party, try quoting RFC791 on this, to support that the original intention of Internet IP was exactly that, to interconnect dissimilar networks. Not to serve as an end to end protocol. Either you will be thrown out immediately, or you will spend the rest of the night in a heated debate where everybody else fiercely oppose you, no matter which RFC791 quotes you present.
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I feel you... literally, the good thing is that in portuguese literally still means literally, but I literally have seen some cases where it is literally not literally.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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Please look up "Hyperbole" in the dictionary. This should solve the issue for you.
P.S. Get a life.
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The current thought in education is that literacy is no longer needed.
So, basically, it doesn't matter what they put in the dictionary because people won't be able to read it soon.
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Language is always evolving, just as the linked article points out. This use of the word goes back centuries. Getting hung up over changes in language isn't going to stop it and dictionaries always report common usage. Modern media (even TV) have accelerated the changes ("gay", "wicked", ...)
I'll join you in a rearguard action to protect our language, but we "literally" lost this one many years ago!
I save my rants for such horrors as aberrant apostrophes, your versus you're (or worse, there/their/they're) and loose versus lose!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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I agree totally; it's probably the biggest irritant of any, when it comes to diction. However, another is when people spell "too" as "to."
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Member 9040137 wrote: another is when people spell "too" as "to."
This can be easily done, and doesn't necessarily mean the perpetrator doesn't understand the difference between the two, so I am more willing to ignore.
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