Incorrect. People have been using it the way you are complaining about for hundreds of years. It’s a new phenomenon that people complain about it being used the way you disapprove of. I’d attribute the recent complaints to lack of literary exposure and anti intellectualism in recent years.
People, including many famous authors, have been using literally this way for hundreds of years.
Yes, but its use to mean its opposite didn’t become widespread until the past decade or so.
People have been complaining about it longer than a decade, so you’re way off there.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
Tldr: common use in the “figurative” sense for since the 1800s.
Incorrect. People have been using it the way you are complaining about for hundreds of years. It’s a new phenomenon that people complain about it being used the way you disapprove of. I’d attribute the recent complaints to lack of literary exposure and anti intellectualism in recent years.