I Might Be a Language Purist (But There’s Hope for Me) – Part 2 Written by Laura Oviedo-Guzmán Maybe you know the story by now, but if you couldn’t or won’t read part one, I’ll catch you up. I had to write a term paper for my Philosophy of Language course. Luckily for me, one of the prompts was about one of my favourite topics–how we managed to shift the meaning of words in our language. Please enjoy the second, shorter part of my paper on how we’ve managed to shift the meaning of the word “literally.” If the closing paragraph makes no sense, I suggest you go back to…
I Might Be a Language Purist (But There’s Hope for Me) Written by Laura Oviedo-Guzmán I don’t know whether it’s clear how much I love language. I do write for a magazine, so I must have a passion for it, right? Yes. And as of mid-December, I have a Linguistics minor to show for it—woo-hoo! Maybe my adoration results from having to figure English out as a native Spanish speaker; maybe it’s because I am very faithful to the meaning of words that people share with me. Either way, I have been fascinated with the ways in which we shift the use of words in our language for as long…
