It gets to the point, though, where I wonder why we have definitions for words at all, if we are to allow and smile at and quickly change the dictionary for words simply used wrong. I think, too, of how people use "literally" when they clearly mean "figuratively" but somehow want emphasis. "I was swimming the English Channel when I literally hit a wall, man," and I'll think "the Chunnel?" Clearly, the speaker did not literally punch some plaster, so "literally" is just the wrong word.
"Literally" is confusing, because while I'm sure some people do use it without understanding the mistake, I'm fairly sure that in my small circle of friends, we know exactly what we are doing. For instance, a conversation with my husband might go like this:
Me: "I couldn't swim another stroke. I literally hit a wall."
Husband: "Literally, huh?"
Me: "That's right. I don't know what idiot decided to put a wall in the middle of my lane, but it sucked."
And now you all know how corny my marriage is. Sorry.
ETA: Of course we don't usually call it out like that. I might say "I'm so hungry I could literally eat a horse," and the wrongness is the point, because of course I couldn't eat an entire horse. The "literally" is just some added hyperbole, saying "No, no! I REALLY mean it." It's emphasis, usually as a joke, but it doesn't come from a misunderstanding.
It's the same as if I said, "You might think it would kill me, but I'm telling you, I'm hungry enough that I really could eat an entire horse. I kid you not. Bring me a horse. I dare you." Saying that doesn't mean that I don't understand that an entire horse won't fit in my stomach. I'm being silly. "Literally" is the same thing for me, just more efficient.
And if it's a class-based attitude, for the record I live on 300 US dollars per month, no food stamps or assistance of any sort, so maybe it's just us poor people who think, in such cases, of Lewis Carroll:
I think people tend to judge each other by how they speak, and some words are triggers for that judgment more than others. I could see "ain't" harming my chances in a job interview more than "nauseous," assuming that I had a legitimate reason to be discussing nausea at all.
My guess is that it's less likely that the dictionary will get changed for words that still trigger discrimination (remember all the uproar over ebonics in school?), but it's really just a guess.