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+--- Thread: I could care less - No. In fact, you could NOT. (/showthread.php?tid=9707)
- Arpikarhu - 11-24-2004
Keyser Soze Wrote:the value that you derive from his misery is just as patheticlap dog to the rescue!!
- The Jays - 11-24-2004
I do remember this thread, the topic wasn't "could not care less", but the "wrong" phrase was used in a story I believe, possibly one of mine. I remember that I had a really brilliant theory on how "could care less" could actually exist as proper grammatical text.
- crx girl - 11-24-2004
i think it was a thread about common phrases that people use wrongly. but is this really a question of english language or education? it's just common sense really.
- The Jays - 11-24-2004
I would just attribute it to the language being influenced by vernacular and conversational grammar. Like using ain't, or got, oughta, wanna, sup, like...
- Arpikarhu - 11-24-2004
the one i can't stand is when people say, "visa versa". that and when they use ,"good", instead of, "well".
- GonzoStyle - 11-24-2004
I hate people who say "brah"
- Galt - 11-24-2004
"misunderestimate"
"disorientated"
and obviously "supposably/supposively"
But that's just mispronouncing phrases. I meant people who are using a phrase that means the exact opposite of they way they are using it
- Arpikarhu - 11-24-2004
are you still drunk or have your language peeves remained despite the lack of alcohol in your system?
- Galt - 11-24-2004
it's not a grammar thing. The phrase doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means. Yet they continue to use it.
- Arpikarhu - 11-24-2004
i suggest you form a PAC to promote the proper usage of the phrase.
- crx girl - 11-24-2004
i'm sober and i'm still agreeing with galt. this concerns me a little.
a few years ago i was watching a news and there'd been an accident and they're interviewing a witness. he says "she was bleeding profusiously" for some reason that still makes me giggle
- Arpikarhu - 11-24-2004
i dont believe that you are sober
- The Jays - 11-24-2004
I don't give a shit/ I couldn't give a shit or I could give a shit
- The Jays - 11-24-2004
I could care less. / I couldn't care less.
I COULD CARE LESS.
I COULDN'T CARE LESS.
Meaning: I don't care at all. I'm not interested at all.
Note: Although these two sentences seem to be opposites, they actually mean the same thing.
A: Don't you think Mark is handsome?
B: You know, I really couldn't care less about Mark. I used to think Mark was handsome, but recently he is getting fat, and now I don't like him at all. Now I like his younger brother, Matthew.
I COULD CARE LESS
[Q] From Leland Woodbury, New York; related questions came from Marc Schoenfeld in San Francisco and many others.: “Your discussion of the contradictory interpretations of cheap at half the price reminds me of a similar conundrum that keeps flustering me in comparing the phrases I couldn’t care less and I could care less, each of which (at least here in America) is used to mean the same thing (which is basically I really don’t care), even though their syntax suggests that they should be opposites.”
[A] The form I could care less has provoked a vast amount of comment and criticism in the past thirty years or so. Few people have had a kind word for it, and many have been vehemently opposed to it (William and Mary Morris, for example, in the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, back in 1975, called it “an ignorant debasement of language”, which seems much too powerful a condemnation). Writers are less inclined to abuse it these days, perhaps because Americans have had time to get used to it.
A bit of history first: the original expression, of course, was I couldn’t care less, meaning “it is impossible for me to have less interest or concern in this matter, since I am already utterly indifferent”. It is originally British. The first record of it in print I know of is in 1946, as the title of a book by Anthony Phelps, recording his experiences in Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. By then it had clearly become sufficiently well known that he could rely on its being recognised. It seems to have reached the US some time in the 1950s and to have become popular in the latter part of that decade. The inverted form I could care less was coined in the US and is found only there. It may have begun to be used in the early 1960s, though it turns up in a written form only in 1966.
Why it lost its negative has been much discussed. It’s clear that the process is different from the shift in meaning that took place with cheap at half the price. In that case, the inversion was due to a mistaken interpretation of its meaning, as has happened, for example, with beg the question.
In these cases people have tried to apply logic, and it has failed them. Attempts to be logical about I could care less also fail. Taken literally, if one could care less, then one must care at least a little, which is obviously the opposite of what is meant. It is so clearly logical nonsense that to condemn it for being so (as some commentators have done) misses the point. The intent is obviously sarcastic—the speaker is really saying, “As if there was something in the world that I care less about”.
However, this doesn’t explain how it came about in the first place. Something caused the negative to vanish even while the original form of the expression was still very much in vogue and available for comparison. Stephen Pinker, in The Language Instinct, points out that the pattern of intonation in the two versions is very different.
There’s a close link between the stress pattern of I could care less and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is I should be so lucky!, in which the real sense is often “I have no hope of being so lucky”, a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning. There’s no evidence to suggest that I could care less came directly from Yiddish, but the similarity is suggestive. There are other American expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of apparent sense, such as Tell me about it!, which usually means “Don’t tell me about it, because I know all about it already”. These may come from similar sources.
So it’s actually a very interesting linguistic development. But it is still regarded as slangy, and also has some social class stigma attached. And because it is hard to be sarcastic in writing, it loses its force when put on paper and just ends up looking stupid. In such cases, the older form, while still rather colloquial, at least will communicate your meaning—at least to those who really could care less.
- Mad - 11-24-2004
Once again they blame Jews for this conundrum.
- crx girl - 11-25-2004
Arpikarhu Wrote:i dont believe that you are soberi was
- Kid Afrika - 11-27-2004
Yes, I tried this debate some time ago. Most people just couldn't care less about speaking properly.
My boss says "or we do this, or we do that". It aggravates the shit out of me that he never uses the word either. He's french, so he's got a valid excuse, but as a manager you should know the language spoken in your office.
Another manager in our office can't say distributor. She always says "distribrutor" and she's been the distributions sales manager for like 5 years. Of course, she also says "supposably", so it's not all that much of a surprise.
- GonzoStyle - 11-27-2004
I had a co-worker who always said "what's happelis?" instead of "whats happening?", ofcourse he was a pollack but no matter how many times you'd try to correct him, he'd never say it properly.
- Gooch - 11-27-2004
language and communication is more about what we buy or consume. it's proper use is iirelevent, unless it affects this.
"The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose"
- John Berger (Ways of Seeing)
- crx girl - 11-27-2004
in other words, people are stupid