Language Keeps Getting Looser and Loser

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Some years back, the Oxford English Dictionary decided to revise their definition of the word "literally" to include an interpretation that turned out be, well, somewhat less than literal.

In addition to a number of traditional definitions, this was added:

c. colloq. Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’.

Now one of the most common uses, although often considered irregular in standard English since it reverses the original sense of literally (‘not figuratively or metaphorically’).

A few years afterwards a minor uproar ensued, with various commentators expressing a great deal of objection to this change, on the basis that it would erode away at the fundamental building blocks of language and meaning. Given that the OED seemed to take great pains to qualify this particular definition - identifying it as a colloquial term, while referring to it as being considered irregular - I think this reaction may have been somewhat overblown.

But I also think this addition does represent a negative effect on the English language. In order to sort out these two views, I try to get past the blame game, and instead look at this in terms of cause and effect.

One of the purposes of the OED, in addition to providing root definitions for words, is to reflect the changing usage of such words, for better or worse. While this does not qualify the catch all phrase of "evolving language" for any misusage of particular words, it does qualify the OED as a disinterested documentation of such usage or misusage (the latter being to such a scale as to require a notational definition).

Therefore the cause of the OED's new definition is in fact the popular misusage of the word, for the "hyperbolic" purposes described in the definition. So, in terms of cause and effect, the cause is many people misusing the term in a hyperbolic manner over a long period of time, and the effect is the OED updating it's definition.

So what of the reaction to this by the language purists? Well, in most cases that I noticed, the reaction was to the effect rather than to the cause. And if you react to an effect, there is a high likelihood that your reaction will become a cause to another effect, quite often more of the same.

When, in objecting to this, people identify the OED as having "literally changed the meaning of the word literal", for simply noting the hyperbolic usage of the term, then they themselves are reacting in a hyperbolic way. And in so doing, they are reinforcing the confirmation bias within people who don't bother to look up the new definition for context, but simply assume that literally really does mean figuratively now.

On the other hand, if you were to note the cause - hyperbolic usage of the term - then you would have identified the main issue: Hyperbole, and it's influence on herd mentality, as well as a general, err, loosening of standards in this regard (I think usage in fiction can perhaps be an exception to such criticism, lest we accuse Anthony Burgess of corrupting the English language as well).

Which leads me to the title of this essay, referring to the near constant switch between the spelling of the words "loose" and "lose". There's just something about this particular misspelling that irks me - maybe the way it evokes the whole idea of language devolving.

Yes, I do think there has been a loosening of the English Language in recent years, and I do believe that the value and substance of words gets loosed I mean lost as a result of such laziness. But I don't blame the OED, or the easily predictable boogeyman of Social Media.

It is hyperbolic and lazy thinking that causes this linguistic erosion, and that means it's up to each one of us to take responsibility for the current state of affairs. In fact, I may be at fault in this very example - it was the overblown reaction to this alteration that caught my attention, after all.

And so I offer no easily solution to the problem, assuming that you even choose to see it as such. Instead I will leave you with this pithy and criminally under appreciated comment from my Twitter Profile:

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Writing and images by Greg McCann, the author of this post and owner of this Steemit Channel. To view more of my work, please visit www.fireawaymarmot.com.