|
Linguists call this usage a "generic intensifier", where whole meaning is stripped away and just means "more". They circulate in and out of fashion as they grow tired. Recently we had "exponentially", correctly meaningful only to describe a series of numbers growing at rate out of all proportion, or sometimes decaying. Lately we have "incredibly", correctly meaning "unbelievably", which has somehow attained greater and longer currency than usual, used even in constructions like "incredibly honest". "Unbelievably" had its day. We have had "deeply", "madly", many others. Ancient ones include "very", which has almost entirely lost its original meaning of "truly", which has itself been a generic intensifier, and been weakened. Any adjective or adverb may completely flip meaning by ironic use, and sometimes back again, such as "terrific", which once meant close to "horrific". "Plausible", literally "believable", meant in the early 20th century more frequently "unbelievable" or "unlikely". In living memory, "likely" meant "unlikely", as in "a likely story". The extremum of ironic usage is "yeah, right". |