The word you're looking for is "literally."

It would be subject to the same fate.

Trying to proscribe a particular usage is a doomed effort. You may as well literally command the tides to turn back. You're really tilting at windmills. It's seriously like mocking a clown. It's exponentially harder than...

no, wait, we can still save "exponentially"! It doesn't just mean a lot! It has important properties that differentiate it from linear or polynomial systems that make predicting outcomes-

small, linguistic drowning noises

EDIT: small, linguistic surfacing noises

I thought of another one, rational used to just mean "possible to express as a ratio" before it got co-opted by the academic-industrial complex-

smaller, somehow more pathetic linguistic drowning noises

I literally only use "literally" when I literally mean "literally".

i have a vague idea (that i can't prove) that people have started using 'objectively' for this purpose. i also think this is hastening objectively towards the same fate as literally. there is objectively nothing that can be done about this

"Like actually literally, for realz"

All we can do is use the word correctly, and maybe, if you feel like it, correct other's use of it.

We've nearly lost "envy", and hundreds of other words due to people using words incorrectly. But, as we all know, language is as alive as the people who use it, and it changes right along with us.

A more interesting story, to me, is the discovery that we're all talking less and less:

Psychologists discovered that, since 2005, the average person has spoken less each year than the year before, by approximately 338 fewer words per day.

Welcome languages, where the definitions aren't static, and the meanings change over time.

This is brought to you by the word angnail. Yes angnail, not hangnail. Okay fine it's hangnail now.

Sometimes the best way to show something as real is to say it plainly.

"They literally flew to Boston"

"They seriously flew to Boston"

"They actually flew to Boston"

Vs

"They flew to Boston"

Isn't that just figuratively?

We should stop using adverbs

I'm fine with descriptivism on theory, but it sure seems wrong in the cases where the word changes meaning due to people misunderstanding/misusing the word. That's not a a word gaining a new meaning, it's losing meaning.

The other one I need a replacement for is "begs the question" since so many people have misused that one too.

it's widely accepted that the word "literally" can be used to add emphasis

You found the root cause.

The solution is vicious heckling of idiots who misuse it - treat them like a middle-school drop-out - until they fix their behavior. Do the same for people who pluralize mass nouns as well: trainings, supports (not used like struts), emails.

Yes, that's why it bothers me that word "literally" is used for emphasis. I don't care how long it's been used that way, it robs the word of utility. The whole point of the word was to clarify that you mean literally when your words might otherwise be interpreted as figurative. Shit like this is why I'm unsure if people around me understand that I'm not exaggerating about the Untied States becoming a legitimate dictatorship committing holocaust level atrocities. I don't know how to communicate when I mean something literally and be sure people understand that I mean it literally and am not exaggerating

I Absolutely agree. It's Totally absurd, we Really need a new word.

I propose "dictionarily".

"No cap fr fr"

“Seriously” THE WORD. It’s not hard. There isn’t a “need” so much as a discipline and normal fucking intelligence.

"Unequivocally"

The word is "acshully"

"without exaggeration"

Then they'll just make THAT one mean "not really literally", too.

-- Frost

Those words are "frfr ong"

"Verbatim" often works...

Literally literally

I've been using "genuinely" more and more in place of "literally" when I want to be, well, literal.

That literally makes no sense.

"widely accepted"

Yeah, no. People who use it incorrectly simply don't understand language or meaning. Just because there's a lot of people who misuse the word doesn't mean it's widely accepted. A lot of people believe in a god, doesn't make it true.

I agree, the bastardization of Literally is one of my vocabulary pet peeves, along with Crescendo.

Best that I can do is, "non-figuratively." As in, "The power of the hurricane winds non-figuratively blew me away."

In German we have multiple different words that mean "literally", not all of which can be used for emphasis. There are the phrases "im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes" ("in the truest sense of the word") as well as "etwas wörtlich nehmen" ("to take something literally"), both of which are usually not used for emphasis, presumably also because they don't nearly fit into the grammatical construction of a sentence in a way that would produce emphasis. Then there is "buchstäblich" (roughly "letterish"), which means the same thing as literally and can be used in both ways, as it's an adverb. But then there is "wortwörtlich" (roughly "word-wordly"), which is also an adverb and grammatically fits into the same position, but I've never heard it being used for emphasis.

Language is weird.

it’s widely accepted that the word “literally” can be used to add emphasis.

NO, the word literally used figuratively to "add emphasis" is only used by ignorants that want to use words without knowing the meaning. we need to stop this.

Configulatory

"Actually" and "truly" and probably a few other synonyms already exist.