Literal Language vs. Figurative Language

You are literally reading this.

That is a fact.

However, a horrific linguistic disease has developed over the past several years: literalalgia.

This disease does not exist literally, but it definitely exists figuratively.

Too many people in our culture have inverted the meaning of ‘literally’.

It now has a second meaning, at least coming from the Wittgensteinian view that the meaning of a word is its use.

That second meaning is practically the antithesis of the first meaning:

My viewpoint on this meaning-inversion is that people lack a metaphorical vocabulary and default to using ‘literally’ because it doesn’t require much thought, or creativity.

I am literally hopeful that you have some analogies and metaphors up your sleeve so that you’re not that guy using the informal, antithetical definition of literally.