Why, in the English language, does one say “I could care less”, when in fact one means “I couldn’t care less”? It’s things like this that keep me awake at night.
(That, and wiki style double square brackets)
Could But Couldn’t
April 7th, 2005 • Barry's Imaginary Publisher
11 Responses to “Could But Couldn’t”
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April 7th, 2005 at 7:22 pm »
For the same reason folks say “ir-regardless”…
April 7th, 2005 at 7:37 pm »
for the same reason semi-literate native english speakers say ‘can’t hardly wait’. This is not slang, it’s just dumb.
April 7th, 2005 at 8:23 pm »
It is the shortened form of “I could possibly care less, but I don’t.” As far as “irregardless” is concerned, it’s sheer ignorance. And can’t hardly wait is totally incorrect,as the correct phrase is “Cain’t hardly wait”, reflecting the phrase’s ignorant hillbilly origins; a non-hillbilly using either of these phrases deserves no less than “Death by Bunda-Bunda”.
April 7th, 2005 at 8:51 pm »
nanook, you talk the talk but do you walk the walk?
April 7th, 2005 at 10:03 pm »
Funny, we just had a thread about this same topic on my own forums. I don’t understand it either!
April 7th, 2005 at 10:06 pm »
OK, I should clarify: I am from the UK. We say “I couldn’t care less”, obviously meaning that we couldn’t care any less than we do about whatever it applies to at the time.
Americans say “Could care less”, which sound like they DO care, but could possibly care a little less. It doesn’t make sense at all to me.
April 7th, 2005 at 10:08 pm »
Not many things Americans do with the English language make much sense!
April 8th, 2005 at 4:15 pm »
haha!! that last one was really good.
as a spanish speaker myself, a lot of things of english just don’t make any sense to me. so I just wait for someone to use them and try to extract a pattern to use them later.
April 9th, 2005 at 3:27 am »
that’s what I do too, but then the words and phrases get all mixed together…and I write that down. Sometimes is works
April 11th, 2005 at 5:46 pm »
I agree with Xorg…I’ve always identified myself as a speaker of American as opposed to English so the people I’m talking to will understand when I say things that don’t appear to make any sense. The problem I have had on my limited trips out of country is that a lot of the things I say are not understood by other people who speak American, perhaps because I speak the Far North by-way-of-Brooklyn-and-Lousiana dialect of Americenglish/Englican.
David (love the name btw!!), I probably have walked the walk at one time or another but don’t remember……
April 11th, 2005 at 8:39 pm »
but then the English don’t make any since. Who cares what the Prince of Ears is married to?(Q: How is the Royal Family like a family of Tennesse Hillbillies? A: They’re a family of inbreds living off the government dole.)