A friend once told me, when you're lost you're liberal and when you're liberal you can go anywhere
Is "liberal" used properly here?
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Do you have context for the sentence? It definitely isn't right but the intended meaning isn't obvious - my instinct is they mean "liberated" but I'd rather not assume.– Alan T.Commented Oct 25, 2018 at 19:27
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It's impossible to say: liberal is what we call a loaded word. But it looks pretty iffy in that sentence. Kind of silly.– LambieCommented Oct 25, 2018 at 20:39
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Well, that was the context '' hey, I'm lost. Then she Said '' when you're lost you're liberal and when you're liberal you can go anywhere'' so I do believe she meant to usr it as free and opened, and that makes the question now, can we actually use liberal in context instead of free and opened?– Muhamed HekalCommented Oct 25, 2018 at 21:08
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Perhaps it should be at liberty. (Although even that would be a bit odd—because being lost implies nothing like that.) But I can't think of any context where liberal would make sense. Barring anything further, I would say that liberal is definitely not being used properly.– Jason BassfordCommented Oct 25, 2018 at 21:33
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1 Answer
"liberal" normally means "politically liberal" - the exact connotations of this vary from one country to another: the Liberals are a centrist party in the UK, whereas "liberal" is used to describe the left wing of the Democratic Party in the USA. Other meanings of "liberal" can be checked in a dictionary.
I suspect the correct word to use would be "free". This can mean "at liberty" (which would be a possible alternative.)
