Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by TeMPOraL 972 days ago
Literally is literally a point. Figuratively is a point only figuratively, literally it is a continuum. If you're not using literally to literally mean literally, you are literally using it to mean figuratively.
2 comments

No, if you aren't using it to mean literally, you are using it figuratively, but not necessarily (or ever, IME) to mean figuratively (usually as an intensifier to a statement that is expected to be understood as figurative from context.)
People are just not literally-absolutists. They believe literally exists in a continuum.

That means they disagree with you on the definition of the word, but it doesn't make it a synonym of figuratively.