What’s the problem with ‘literally’?

How does the word ‘literally’ make you feel? For a lot of language-lovers, the answer will be somewhere between mildly irritated and fist-gnawingly furious. It’s the misuse of the word that most perturbs. It has a habit of lurking where it has no place to be, taking a perfectly acceptable (if conventional) metaphor and turning into nonsense. Metaphors are figurative, for heaven’s sake, say its detractors.

If that’s how you feel, you’re far from alone. We all have our stylistic preferences, so I’m not going try to convert you to the ‘literally’ cause. But I do wonder why this particular word used in this way gets so many people so angry.

It can’t be because it’s new. The OED gives examples of the non-literal ‘literally’ going back to 1769. My personal favourite comes from 1801, where some unfortunate man is described as ‘literally…made up of marechal powder, cravat, and bootees’ (marechal powder being a sort of eighteenth-century hair powder).