Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. We all know someone who repeats a certain word frequently in conversations. Maybe it's "like," or "essentially" or "literally." ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. The word “literally” has always meant “in a ...

If you’re a cool-headed, fair-minded, forward-thinking descriptivist like my colleague David Haglund, it doesn’t bother you one bit that people often use the word “literally” when describing things ...

Grammar loving folks who love to point out where commas should be inserted instead of periods and how semi-colons are both simultaneously underused and overused, should pick up their red pens, ...

It’s the literal truth, we say, as if that “literal” conveyed an extra measure of authority. Actually, literal meanings are frequently wrong, and often confusing. A recent example is the “naked wife” ...

My editor here in the WGBH Newsroom, Aaron Schachter, is a little bit of a curmudgeon. And in recent weeks he's had a linguistic bee in his bonnet that he will not let go. "I am literally going crazy, ...

The Internet is abuzz with irate grammarians criticizing the way Google defines the word "literally." In addition to the word's original meaning—"in a literal manner or sense"—the Google definition ...

IT IS literally impossible to be literal. I know what you’re thinking. Literal is the word we use when we mean exactly what we say, and metaphorical or figurative is what we say when we’re playing ...

We all know someone who repeats a certain word frequently in conversations. Maybe it's "like," or "essentially" or "literally." That likely sounds familiar, and it can be a bit distracting—especially ...