Words and Meaning: Literally, Science Fiction, and the False Positive

The Case of "Literally"

I've heard people complain about people's misuse of "literally"--that is, a usage that had nothing to do with a thing's "literal"-ness--but I'd never heard it myself. When I did recently, I wondered what she meant by its usage. The speaker had just relayed an unbelievable story where the actors had done something baffling and annoying and she ended the tale with "literally."

I concluded her usage meant it as an intensifer like "very much so" as in "Not only is it what I just said, but also very much what I just said." I looked up the term in Merriam-Webster, and maybe "used to emphasize the truth and accuracy of a statement or description" would fit, but not in the sense used in their example where just one word was meant: "The party was attended by literally hundreds of people" where the term only refers to "hundreds." She referred to her whole statement as if to say, "Can you believe that?"

Apparently, "literal" comes from the Latin word for "letter," so maybe it was her way of saying "Everything happened as it happened to the letter. Can you believe that craziness?"

The Case of "Science Fiction"

Someone asked for people's definition of science fiction. The problem with "science fiction" is what do people mean by it since it has so many definitions.

Early on, back in Gernsback's "scientifiction" day, it would have emphasized the science. Later--perhaps due to the poor quality of work produced initially--it is used by some as a pejorative suggesting anything that isn't true or couldn't happen--the opposite of what most readers of the stuff would call it. For a third group of people, who don't see it pejoratively, it still includes fantasy, which it does not for serious fans.

The most usual definition of "science fiction" for those who read it and aren't looking to quibble is something that hasn't happened but could happen or could have happened, given the right conditions. One almost has to contrast it with its kissing cousin "fantasy" to come up with a useful definition. 

It is presumed the more rigorous although writers probably spend relative amounts of work on both although it often requires specialized knowledge.

Contrast two stories involving fairies where they existed among our ancestors: one might be SF while the other fantasy simply through the focus on science and never allowing a magical explanation to suffice for why it existed or what it could do.

It's interesting though that we often allow one "fudge factor" or one imaginary impossibility or sometimes allow what used to be allowed in SF but is no longer considered acceptable (FTL or ESP) despite there still being a possibility that something might allow those to become acceptable scientific possibilities one day.

In pondering the second above-mentioned meaning of the term "science fiction," I suspect the pejorative user of intends us not to believe whatever was said: "That's just science fiction." They could have simply said that something was "fiction" and conveyed the same content. But they didn't. So what was the word "science" doing for them? Like "literally" above, it served as an intensifier like "very" or maybe "way beyond." 

In both cases, what is said negatively or pejoratively, may actually be a back-handed compliment, where "letters" and "science" are asked to be seen as increasing a thing's inherent properties.

The Case of "Yeah, Right" or "Yeah Yeah" or that old linguistic joke

You've probably heard the joke about the professor who said there is no language that uses a double positive to mean a negative and someone in the audience says "Yeah, right" or "Yeah, yeah." When I first heard it, it was a professor heckling another professor at a conference although recently I read it as a student heckling his teacher, which seems to be a common joke format where the intelligence of the one being taught exceeds that of the one teaching--a situation that seems to delight an audience.

Anyway, we're supposed to take away from the joke the idea that language is more strange and supple than we suppose--a good point--but the heckler's words seemed a little glib to be taken as a valuable refutation of the speaker's point. I've heard the joke told two ways. Since the story has been told two ways, I'll address both.

1. The Case of "Yeah, right"

What's problematic here is that it was the tone that conveyed the meaning, not the words. In fact, "Yeah, right" is actually a double agreement with a speaker, shortened from "Yes, that is right." There's a reason why the parts are separated by a comma. When we say "No, he didn't" that is grammatically correct and not a double negative. We could also say, "Yes, he didn't" and mean the same thing. The "Yes" and "no" address the speaker's comment in some fashion and the second is a separate statement.

Sarcasm is what inverts/subverts the meaning of the words. I can imagine that there would be a situation where the meaning of words can be subverted by a gesture, not tone. Say, someone says deadpan, "I love until death us do part," and points a gun at the "loved" one. Or someone says, "I'm listening" while playing video games.

2. The Slightly Different (or Wholly Different?) Case of "Yeah, yeah"

One might also use the sarcasm explanation here, but this case is more complicated because it's hard to know what a speaker means exactly. 

One use I've heard is where "Yeah" can be used any number of times and mean the same thing. Usually, the speaker is talking over another speaker to suggest that that guy should shut up. She or he's heard it all before or isn't interested in what's being said. One could say this is sarcasm, or possibly the term "yeah" in this case begins with a negative value.

In the Learner's Dictionary, they point out that "yeah" can be used to show disagreement: "Oh, yeah?"

If it's spelled "yah," it's word of contempt or derision.

When I was a child, my grandmother used the word as a verb as in "Stop 'yah-ing' [or 'yeah-ing'] at each other," which seemed to be a cognate for complain, nag, bicker, argue, etc. I looked for that use online, but haven't found it.

In any of the above cases, if the term begins as a negative, it does not refute the professor's statement that a double positive becomes a negative.  I'm not sure how an informal word could come to have nearly opposite meanings, but possibly the different meanings began life as two words with different origins but similar sounds.