> So are you prescribing to me that I must accept "figuratively" as a valid definition for "literally"?
No, they are describing the fact that it is used that way, whether you like it or not.
That said, while I totally accept the usage, and don't have a problem with people saying "I literally died laughing" (because the phrase "I died laughing" is already on the face of it a statement of fact, and yet we have no problem understanding that it's figurative, so any modifiers -- I seriously died laughing, I totally died laughing -- are just intensifying the hyperbole), I personally don't think it should have been added to the dictionary.
People already use intensifiers when being hyperbolic (as above, "I seriously died laughing," "I totally died laughing"), we don't need to add to the definition of all of them. It's a valid part of the constellation of "intensifier + idiom," and each intensifier doesn't need to be singled out.
"Died" is already an intensifier -- and a pretty extreme one. But because of overuse, it's become meaningless; and so now people feel like they have to add more intensifiers: "seriously", "totally", "literally", etc. Eventually all those will be so overused that they become meaningless too.
I think saying "I died laughing" is a fine idiom. But the continual slipping into "cranking up the volume", and having more and more words mean nothing, is bad for the language. So, I vote to oppose this.
You have a vote too. Think about the way you want the language to be, and then vote by using it that way, and / or arguing with people who use it the way you don't like.
I actually have a strong memory of being about 4 or 5 (before I would have heard the phrase), and laughing at a joke my dad told so hard that I couldn't breathe for a moment, and then being genuinely furious at him, telling him "I could have died!"
I've seen the phrase "busy to death" ("忙死了"), and "missed you to death" ("念死了"), so I think Chinese are just more prone to die of extreme emotions. ;-)
No, they are describing the fact that it is used that way, whether you like it or not.
That said, while I totally accept the usage, and don't have a problem with people saying "I literally died laughing" (because the phrase "I died laughing" is already on the face of it a statement of fact, and yet we have no problem understanding that it's figurative, so any modifiers -- I seriously died laughing, I totally died laughing -- are just intensifying the hyperbole), I personally don't think it should have been added to the dictionary.
People already use intensifiers when being hyperbolic (as above, "I seriously died laughing," "I totally died laughing"), we don't need to add to the definition of all of them. It's a valid part of the constellation of "intensifier + idiom," and each intensifier doesn't need to be singled out.