RockBottomthe wall street journal today literally asking "but what do dead kids mean for the GDP?"
I don’t think OP knows what literally means. The wsj did not ask the question in the title. It asked a different question.
Oh I’m with you, but I stopped fighting for the word “literally” when the damn dictionaries gave up and added shit like this:
2 informal : in effect : VIRTUALLY —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible
I literally died of embarrassment.
… will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or inju
WesDym@scarabic Depends on the dictionary. Some are better than this.
Anyway, you don't have to accept what M-W says if you don't want to. No one owns or controls English.
Dictionaries have armies of people who decide these things, based chiefly on where they stand on the P-D spectrum. M-W is "strongly descriptive", meaning they cotton to popular misuse. And that's a view you can accept or not, as you please.
Some of the more 'popular' dictionaries do this to make more money over time.
Damn you, Big Dictionary!