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We need a word for "literally" that doesn't also mean "not literally"
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this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
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I think the lesson to learn here is that it is easier to kill a word by adding a new meaning than by policing how other people use it.
Eradicating a colloquial definition is like eradicating a virus, except anyone can crack open an old book at any time and revive it with their mind. I'm sure there are some meanings that have truly died i.e. there are no surviving records of them on earth, but they sure seem resilient. That's before considering that the circumstances that give rise to one meaning might easily reoccur and cause the same meaning to rise again, perhaps under a new name. Sort of a convergent evolution for words, if you will.
I think the best we can hope to do is nudge words into more useful meanings, and create new words when our old words get overloaded.