Literally

I was watching TV the other day, and an advertisement came on for a Lasik eye care clinic. Patient after patient made a brief, glowing testimonial about the wonders of laser eye surgery. One woman gratefully declared, "Lasik eye surgery changed my life. Literally."

Which got me thinking. (Unfortunately for you, the reader.) I think the word "literally" has lost its meaning. In the context described above, its purpose used to be well-defined: to distinguish the literal meaning of a phrase from its figurative or metaphorical meaning, and to drive home the fact that you actually intended to use the phrase's literal meaning.

I've noticed that my little step-sister (just one representative from the up-and-coming "Generation Text") says "literally" all the time, but each time she does, it's not to serve the aforementioned purpose. Rather, it's to emphasize what she just said. Sort of like an exclamation mark, without the shouting. In that commercial, the Lasik eye surgery REALLY changed the woman's life. It's not like we could make the mistake that she meant that figuratively, right?

Examples of how literally "should" be used are difficult for me to come by right now for some reason; anything I come up with now in my stream of consciousness seems a bit contrived. But here goes anyway.

1.) "Wow, that wind tunnel blew me away. Literally."
2.) A college student, who on a particularly wild night that included seven Bud Lights and (for some reason) a little carpentry which resulted in him missing the nail with his hammer and instead breaking his index finger, might say, "I got so hammered that night. Literally."

You get the point.

But maybe the ongoing evolution of the word "literally" isn't necessarily incorrect, i.e., it hasn't really lost its meaning. Perhaps it's simply a change. The English language just changes. Every word of it. My dad, also known as Super English Teacher Man, has an old textbook that shows this happening. No joke, a printed quote from the Anglo-Saxons from the 1200s (or something like that) looked like the typewriter threw up on the page. But that's exactly where English was born 800 years ago, and this is how far we've come. From the olden days of the Shakespearean plays, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the lyrics of a Beatles song, just about everything about the language has evolved to what it is now. So why not the word "literally"?

Can you say "over-analyze"?