Much as it may pain you, “could care less” is an established idiom in American English that’s been in use for 70 years, and Webster’s dictionary has a whole page about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/could-couldnt-care-l..., in which they say:
> people who go through life expecting informal variant idioms in English to behave logically are setting themselves up for a lifetime of hurt.
I couldn't care less if there's a group of people misusing the phrase, logically "I could care less" means the exact opposite of "I couldn't care less".
The majority of the world is not American, and presumably the majority of Americans don't use the incorrect phrase, so why should the rest of the world cater for a minority within a minority by putting their butchered phrase on equal footing with the correct phrase?
The examples in that article do not actually argue for the point being made (that this has been going on for 70 years):
> His bearing towards male acquaintances, of whom he knew little or nothing and could care less, ...
Here, "could care less" refers to how little he knows about the male acquaintances, and is effectively saying he cares even less than the little he knows. When we see people write "could care less', they don't write it in the same context, at all.
And then:
> It is impossible that he could care less.
This is clearly a different way to write "couldn't care less", and is again not how we see people use the phrase "could care less".
That being said, "could care less" is definitely a thing of the last 10-20 years and is not going anywhere.
Why do they do this instead of just maintaining the correct usage? The redefining of the word “literal” to mean “potentially not literal” really grinds my gears.
Per my "troll metric" / rage bait/"le reddit quantification", formalized as a response's comment's conversational entropy divided by parent comment length, this is a fantastic comment.
libraryofbabel|2 years ago
> people who go through life expecting informal variant idioms in English to behave logically are setting themselves up for a lifetime of hurt.
SturgeonsLaw|2 years ago
The majority of the world is not American, and presumably the majority of Americans don't use the incorrect phrase, so why should the rest of the world cater for a minority within a minority by putting their butchered phrase on equal footing with the correct phrase?
ryanjshaw|2 years ago
> His bearing towards male acquaintances, of whom he knew little or nothing and could care less, ...
Here, "could care less" refers to how little he knows about the male acquaintances, and is effectively saying he cares even less than the little he knows. When we see people write "could care less', they don't write it in the same context, at all.
And then:
> It is impossible that he could care less.
This is clearly a different way to write "couldn't care less", and is again not how we see people use the phrase "could care less".
That being said, "could care less" is definitely a thing of the last 10-20 years and is not going anywhere.
abenga|2 years ago
choxi|2 years ago
BeFlatXIII|2 years ago
Jerrrry|2 years ago
Pure, distilled, thought provocation.
Thank you.
acidburnNSA|2 years ago
nop24423|2 years ago
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