Since it’s widely accepted that the word “literally” can be used to add emphasis, we need another word that can be used when you want to make it clear that you really mean “literally” in the original sense.
Since it’s widely accepted that the word “literally” can be used to add emphasis, we need another word that can be used when you want to make it clear that you really mean “literally” in the original sense.
Eradicating a colloquial definition is like eradicating a virus, except anyone can crack open an old book at any time and revive it with their mind. I’m sure there are some meanings that have truly died i.e. there are no surviving records of them on earth, but they sure seem resilient. That’s before considering that the circumstances that give rise to one meaning might easily reoccur and cause the same meaning to rise again, perhaps under a new name. Sort of a convergent evolution for words, if you will.
I think the best we can hope to do is nudge words into more useful meanings, and create new words when our old words get overloaded.