So sure, you could cite a dictionary as license to use words in misleading ways because other (confused) people have made an unhelpful definition commonplace. But some people actually care about using words to convey meaning, and care about the difference between "robbery" and "theft."
The "difference" between robbery and theft exists primarily in legal jargon, and was never sharply defined in common usage. Regardless of your distaste for "literally," the dictionary is a much better source on colloquial usage than the penal code.
Literally does mean virtually now. If you care about using words to convey meaning, you should care what other people think words mean. What you think is pretty much irrelevant if everyone else disagrees with you.
> If a word has two definitions that have opposite meanings, then the word literally doesn't have any meaning at all.
First, this is wrong; many words have multiple meanings some of which are diametrically opposed; they still have meaning, though it may take awareness of context to interpret the correct meaning.
Second, its irrelevant; the different meanings of “literally” are not opposites, though the figurative use (which does not, contrary to some descriptions, mean same as “figuratively”) is often presented incorrectly in a manner which suggests that. The figurative meaning is a qualitative intensifier applied to another figurative description which the speaker expects is clearly figurative from context, not a description which communicated that that use is figurative rather than literal.
The use of "literally" is only necessary in contexts where it is in question whether the meaning is literal or not. So it's hardly sufficient to say that we can infer from context whether the speaker's meaning is "clearly figurative", since that is exactly the ambiguity that the word "literally" is used to resolve.
> The use of "literally" is only necessary in contexts where it is in question whether the meaning is literal or not.
The use of literally with its meaning of “not figurative” is only necessary in those contexts where it is unclear without the additional term whether a use is figurative or literal.
The use of it with its meaning as an intensifier of a figurative statement is only necessary (or appropriate) when it is already clear from context that the use is figurative and cannot be literal.
This analysis doesn't give the speaker any room to challenge the listener's expectations about what is possible. If the listener thinks a thing is impossible (particularly in a way that sounds potentially hyperbolic or humorous), the speaker can no longer use the word "literally" to clarify their meaning.
Worse, as usage of the second meaning grows, it encroaches on one's ability to use the first meaning unambiguously. If the second usage becomes more and more commonplace, with the bar constantly lowering on how unbelievable something needs to be for this usage, it affects everyone who wants to use the word functionally.
> The use of it with its meaning as an intensifier of a figurative statement is only necessary (or appropriate)
That's awfully prescriptivist of you. Go with the flow, man! I'm literally done replying on this thread.
> This analysis doesn't give the speaker any room to challenge the listener's expectations about what is possible.
Sure, it does; first, “context” includes everything other than the words used, including the manner of the speakers presentation, and, second, the rest of the English language is still available. One can, for instance, explicitly state, “not figuratively”. It's true that—as is true in general with figurative uses—the more common they become in situations where speaker and listener may nit view context the same way, the more they require verbose circumlocution to disambiguate literal from figurative use. (The use of “literally” in it's literal sense is almost entirely such a circumlocution made necessary by such issues with figurative uses of other words and phrases, for instance.) This affects figurative use of “literally” the same as any other figurative use of language.
: ( I don't disagree with you, and I get that prescriptivism is a losing battle (and the wrong battle, IMO), but this one bothers me, because we actually _lost_ expressive power.
No we didn't. Exaggeration is a normal part of language, and every strong-sounding word will be "misused" for effect sometimes. "This heat is killing me", "I'm in love with this ice cream", "I swear to god...", etc. It's almost always clear which version of "literally" someone is using, and I suspect the exaggerated usage is as old as the word itself.
> It's almost always clear which version of "literally" someone is using
None of these examples are relevant.
> This heat is killing me
No ambiguity in the misuse here, since you would literally be the first person who had ever talked to the living dead.
> I'm in love with this ice cream
"In love" isn't well-defined. How is this even a misuse?
> I swear to god
Again, how is this a misuse? You might argue that people swear to god too casually, but that's a far cry from somehow claiming that you're certain that the person doesn't _actually_ mean they're swearing to god.
By contrast, I've already personally come across cases where people used the word literally and were misunderstood as meaning "a lot". On more than one occasion!
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