Words don’t always mean what they used to.

Momentarily used to mean ‘for a moment’, and now it means ‘in a moment’. And many people don’t take literally literally. How do we know when it’s time to give the old meaning the old heave-ho?

Linguist Daniel Midgley looks at some attempts to do just that, on this week’s Talk the Talk.


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19: Language Change, Literally

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Show notes

The original Slate article by Ben Yagoda
http://www.slate.com/id/2290536/

A response from The Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/change