[Ads-l] "legitimately" to mean "very"

[Dan Goncharoff]

Maybe they literally got bored with using "literally"?

On Sun, Sep 26, 2021, 12:56 AM Stanton McCandlish <smccandlish at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've been a bit annoyed with a trend I'd heard spoken, and maybe seen in
> texting, of using "legitimately" as a general intensifier like "very" or
> "completely" or "so".  Now I've run across it in *Washington** Post*,
> albeit in quoted speech: "It was legitimately horrible."
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/cool-sculpting-linda-evangelista-fat-freezing/2021/09/24/85ade25a-1d6b-11ec-a99a-5fea2b2da34b_story.html
>
> Can something be illegitimately horrible?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org