This Happens Constantly

Disappointing that I have to specify which definition of the world “Literally” I’m using

Jeremy will now begin shaking his fist at "them darn kids" in addition to criticizing their grammar.  

So, there are these two words in the English language I'd like to talk about today.  Their meaning and proper usage used to be pretty cut and dry.  "Literally" and "Figuratively" existed as antonyms of each other, where one meant that something is precisely, to the letter, as described, and the other meant that an exaggeration or literary license was being taken.  Seems pretty simple, right?

Well, thanks to stupidity, people now say "Literally" very often when they are not, in fact, being literal about a description.  As in, "This happens literally 27 million times a nanosecond!"  As happens often in language, the dumbing down of usage of the words has literally caused the Oxford friggin' dictionary to Change The Definition Of Literally to include the figurative use of the word.  

This sucks.  

Basically, the only reason either of these two words exists is to distinguish themselves from the other.  When I say "Literally," I mean "not figuratively" and vice versa.  Now that one of the words means the other, there is no reason whatsoever for either to exist!  Why even bother with the word Literally now, since it can mean either literally, or not literally?  It's the Schrodinger's Cat of grammar.  

What's worse, is that now, when I use the word "literally" to mean "literally," I have to clarify that I'm using it in the literal sense, and that I don't mean "figuratively."  So now, I have to use more words to describe an adjective than I would have used otherwise by just using a single adjective.  Annoying.