For me I say that a truck with a cab longer than its bed is not a truck, but an SUV with an overgrown bumper.

  • KidDogDad@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Former linguistics grad student here: The meaning of “literal” is changing, and sentences like “That guy is literally 500 years old” are correct.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Yes. Ling PhD here – after teaching for 10+ years, the thing most people consistently do not understand about language is: the dictionary does not define what words mean. Dictionaries at best are a representation of what words meant at one time, and those meanings change quickly and pervasively enough that there is constantly a non-zero* number of words for which the dictionary is already wrong.

      *in actuality it’s probably significantly higher than what is connotated by “non-zero”

    • Yozul@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Do people actually use it that way anymore though? I haven’t heard anybody do it in a long time.