The meanings of words also continue to change, part of a process that has been going on almost as long as the language itself. For instance, to the disgust of many, alternate is now almost universally accepted in North America as a replacement for alternative; momentarily has come to mean "very soon" and not (or as well as) "for a very short period of time"; and the use of the modifier literally to mean its exact opposite has recently found it way into the Oxford English Dictionary (where one of its meanings is shown as "used for emphasis rather than being actually true"). In some walks of life, bad, sick, dope and wicked are all now different varieties of good.