• Willy
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    6 months ago

    “I have seen these addictive algorithms pull in young people, literally capture them and make them prisoners in a space where they are cut off from human connection, social interaction and normal classroom activity,” she said.

    literally capture them? you should be literally ejected from office.

    • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Spend 5 minutes on any HS campus during passing period and you’ll see that it’s correct to say capture.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      6 months ago

      https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literally

      literally

      (degree, figuratively, proscribed, contranym) Used non-literally as an intensifier for figurative statements: virtually, so to speak (often considered incorrect; see usage notes)

      Synonym: virtually

      He was so surprised, he literally jumped twenty feet in the air.

      I agree that it’s a goddamn obnoxious use of the word that is a recipe for ambiguity, but I think that the battle over this has been lost.