[aestra]

Literally has a second definition that means "figurative or metaphorical" which has been in use since the 18th century. Language isn't static, just as the definition of really has expanded from "in reality" to "truly" and "very." Then terrific went from meaning "terrifying" to "very good."

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the...

"As is often the case, though, such "abuses" have a long and esteemed history in English. Tom Sawyer wasn't turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as "literally rolling in wealth," nor was Jay Gatsby shining when Fitzgerald wrote that "he literally glowed," nor were Bach and Beethoven squeezed into a fedora when Joyce wrote in Ulysses that a Mozart piece was "the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat." Such examples are easily come by, even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate."