for some reason that does not bother me at all. the so called idiom, however, brings my reading to a halt as my mind revolts against the abomination and insists on adding a “not” to the phrase.
I got a taste of this in high school French class (in Hawaii), circa 1968. We had to read a very abridged version of La Tulipe Noire. There was some passage in there about somebody being angry with somebody else.
But in the phrase [somebody was] angry with [somebody], the French word for “with” was “contra”.
The teacher explained that “contra” usually means “against”, but in this case it means “with”.
I thought the French had it right the first time. Saying somebody is “angry against” someone actually makes a lot more sense that saying somebody is “angry with” someone.
I imagine they wanted to say “lashes so long that they defy measurement”, but realised that if the statement made sense, it would represent a claim that people might expect to be true.
I’d say the real distinction is that “to hang,” in the sense of hanging drapes, is a different word from “to hang,” in the sense of stringing someone up. This is seen by the observable fact that they use different lexemes for one of the inflections in their respective paradigms, despite being homonymic in all their other forms.
The natures of the action, subjects, or objects used in the sentence don’t inform any kind of syntactic “rule” about hung vs. hanged – to suppose so unpardonably conflates syntax with semantics. Instead, they indicate which of the two words can be sensibly used in a sentence that would be understood by other English speakers. Although as cochrane pointed out, the verb whose preterite is written “hung” is fine to use for both types of action.
(And “hung” in the sense of “having a large penis” is a separate word, being an adjective and not a verb.)
It does, really, it does. The problem is, I can’t decide if it’s flammable or inflammable… 
You must think you’re pretty hot, huh? Or maybe you’re cool.
Or, to address it more directly, do you think you’re accurately understanding why the idiom works? Yeahhhh…SURE you are. No, you’re not.
When there’s a positive and negative of the same construction of a phrase to mean the same thing, there’s a pretty good chance that one of the constructions is sarcastic.
That’s perfectly grammatically correct (not that that’s required for bluesiness), as is “Now I lay me down to sleep.” In both cases you’re laying something; there’s an object to the verb.
That is Steven Pinker’s take on the phrase. I’m not sure I completely agree, but he’s right that the intonation of “I could care less” is generally different from a straight reading. Most often, it’s “I could CARE LESS,” with a drawn out “care” and “less.” That said, I’ve heard it with a straight intonation, and I’m not convinced it’s an intentionally sarcastic phrase, either. I don’t think it matters, idiom is idiom, there’s no need to justify it or make sense of it.
While searching for the original quote, here is one critique of Pinker’s view that it is sarcastic intonation.
I think people who say it that way are just being careless.
I should of never opened this thread.
The past tense of plead is not pled; it is pleaded. He pleaded guilty.
Well, yeah, really.
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QFT. The most reliable account of I could care less. Absolutely no indication of sarcasm. It’s just a phrase that got shortened. I found in in newspaper headings in the late 1950s.
The prefix in- in this case means into, in, on or upon so inflammable means on+fire+capability. Capable of being set on fire. This is the same prefix that is found in words like inquire or inscribe.
My bolding
Hanged on the gallows.
Hung on the gibbet.
Years ago I was at a mall and leafed through Bill Clinton’s biography and was astounded that all the pictures were captioned with “Hilary and I,” “Mother and I,” etc.
What’s up with that?
Ah, that’s one that does get my goat a bit. More of a spelling/transcription error, but a grammar error, too.
Using “I” instead of me is probably the most common, and to me the most annoying misuse of grammar. “Educated” people even say things like “Set up a meeting with he and I.” Ugggggh
Was there more to them than that, or was it just “Mother and I”? Because, see Post #34:
I can’t remember. I just recall that it didn’t look right at the time.
My dad used to joke that if we conjugate swim-swam-swum and sing-sang-sung then it should be hing-hang-hung. So “hung” should be the past perfect of the verb “to hing”.