• alanjaow@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Webster’s updated “literally”. It now includes the definition “to add emphasis”, since people keep using it incorrectly. They update the dictionary to reflect current usage, so I get it, but it still makes me sad.

      • setsubyou@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        If this sort of thing didn’t happen, you would just have claimed that seeing the dictionary entry makes you not hungry. (Original meaning of sad in Old English, cognate with German satt which still has this meaning.)

            • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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              19 hours ago

              I didn’t mean contronyms.

              One example of what I mean is the word knight. It used to mean boy or servant. The German word Knecht still means (farmers) servant.

              Another is ‘nice’, which used to mean ‘simple, foolish, ignorant’.

      • 0ops@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Mark my words, it’s going to happen again with “objectively”. I see stuff like this constantly:

        This art piece is objectively good

        That’s not what’s objectively means?