Comment on How Dating Apps Are Squeezing More Money Out of Less People
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 week agoI would normally agree with you.
But just as it’s okay for people to speak the way they want, it’s also okay for people to spread language knowledge. Then let the people decide whether they want to use that knowledge or not.
It’s not like OP said “it’s ‘fewer’, you idiot!” In that case, I’d say it’s elitism. Otherwise, it’s just a useful lemmy comment.
my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 1 week ago
Hard disagree; it’s not a useful comment precisely because it’s prescriptivism. It’s suggesting people are incorrect because they’re using a commonly accepted meaning of a word, that’s just not how language works.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Interesting! Today I learned, then. Thanks.
Now, and this I’m going to say in a sort-of tongue-in-cheek manner, what’s your opinion on the recent change of the meaning of “literally”? Because that one is definitely less (ha!) than 200 years old.
my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 1 week ago
According to this list it was used figuratively by Jane Austen, who I believe died more than 200 years ago. That page also claims the earliest known use is 1769, so it’s probably less than 300 years in writing? It’s moot either way, if you’re going for an etymological argument you could go further and say literally should mean anything to do with letters or writing, from the original Latin literalis/litteralis “of or belonging to letters or writing”.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I wasn’t going for an ethymological argument. Plenty of examples of words whose meaning veered away from its ethymology.
But the recent popularization of literally as a synonym of figurativrly, well, it literally rustles my jimmies.