Why does an alarm not work?
visc
I think it might be trying to imply that if you were the only one with communications equipment in a known extreme flood risk zone full of children that you are responsible for, you had better not be sleeping at 1am. Also that you probably shouldn’t have fought as hard to be allowed to be in this situation.
Consider an expression “he was as happy as a kid in a literal candy store”, meaning as “as happy as a kid in a store literally made from candy”. “Literally” here modifies the nonexistent candy store and turns it into a store made out of candy. There is no contention here about whether the store exists or not, it’s just part of the exaggeration.
Similarly you can say “I’m so dead-tired I might as well be literally dead for all the good I’ll be at work today.” Here the state you’re saying you might as well be in is “literally dead”. Not just “dead-tired”, not just “dead to the world”, but “literally dead”. But it’s still clear that no real death has occurred, just an hypothetical one as part of the exaggeration.
Now let’s exaggerate even more and say we’ve reached that hypothetical state of literal deadness, how would you say it? “Sorry I can’t work I’m literally dead” is one way, but now it’s unclear because this also could mean that you have actually died. How about “sorry I am in the state of being literally dead”? A bit awkward but at least it’s clear you’re not REALLY in the state of literal death, you’re just exaggerating that you’re in that state.
People use “literal” as an intensifier to the exaggeration, by modifying the exaggeration from within, not from outside of it commenting on the truth of it.
If you get this multiple times I’m sorry, I’m on a train and internet is patchy
Nothing happened to “literally”, its meaning is the same as always and it never means “figuratively”.
When people say “literally” to exaggerate, the word is part of the exaggeration, not describing the exaggeration.
They’re not literally “dead”, they’re “literally dead”. “Literally dead” is the state they exaggerate being in.
I discovered this year that there was an unspoken rule to get on the bus in the order you arrived at the bus stop at. I had never paid attention to this and just got on in order of proximity to the door when it stopped until I got yelled at. I thought the guy was just being weird but I’ve paid attention since and it is absolutely true, people will move away from the door to let people who have waited longer board first.
Not sure how universal this is, I’m in the UK.