Literally!
The Word We Love To Hate - Literally. By Jesse Sheidlower
When I introduce myself as a dictionary editor to a stranger, I can usually count on a few things. The stranger will say, "Oh, I'll have to watch how I talk in front of you." The stranger will ask me about why some word like bling was put into The Dictionary (as though there's only one). And then the stranger will complain about a pet usage peeve, some error perpetrated by members of a disliked group—sportscasters, say, or teenagers, or Americans.Recently, strangers I meet seem particularly peeved by people who use literally to mean figuratively (the ones who say things like "he literally exploded with rage"). Even strangers I don't meet are fixated—two of them run a reasonably informed blog devoted to "tracking abuse of the word 'literally.' "
As is often the case, though, such "abuses" have a long and esteemed history in English.
[more]