You and your therapist are arguing about an issue- you say A, he says B. During the course of the argument (discussion?), each of you is trying to convince the other to see it your way. You are both unsuccessful; you still say A, he still says B. Hence, a disagreement.
You have to agree to stop trying to convince each other, and let it remain as a disagreement. You agree to disagree (about the original issue).
If you disagreed to disagree, you’d continuing arguing about it endlessly, or until one of you gave up your position.
Sure you can: one person wants to stop the debate because he thinks it’s pointless, the other hasn’t given up and wants to continue until he’s “won” the debate.
It’s just shorthand for “agree to keep disagreeing without hope of resolution”. You aren’t agreeing on the subject of argument, you are agreeing on the subject of whether to continue the argument. If you “disagree about disagreeing” then one of you still wants to argue the point
It’s in fact two different senses of “agree:” you agree (consent) not to agree (hold the same belief on a question).
You can’t “disagree to disagree” because the word “disagree,” unlike “agree,” can’t be used to mean “not to consent” but only “not to hold the same belief.”
When someone tries to express that something is of no importance to them and they say “I could care less.” If you could care less, then you are saying the issue has at least some importance. The phrase you are looking for is COULDN’T care less. That one really irritates me.
But when phrased that way, a little sarcasm is implied.
When God was handing out souls to fetuses, they all came with original sin as a standard feature. Mary, however, was a custom job. She had a sort of in-the-womb baptism, performed by the Big Guy himself. Cite.
AFAICT, the consensus among linguists seems to be that “I could care less” is favored either because
(a) It’s sarcastic (it actually means “I couldn’t care less”) or
(b) It implies a second clause: “…but I won’t”, which adds insult.
ETA: Although I used to think it was “wrong” too, and programmed myself to say “I couldn’t care less” back in my days as a literalist. Now I can’t say “I could care less” unless I’m really thinking about it. C’est la vie.
Also true. People often package up standard catchphrases in such a way that they only want to convey the overall message rather than parse out every single word, and the original intent sometimes gets mangled.
This can often be seen when you ask someone “What’s up?” and they reply “Fine.” The intent behind the exchange is really just saying hello to each other, albeit in the most intellectually lazy way possible.
It was like my high school chorus teacher who would quiet us down by saying “I can’t hear, please.”
Lately I’ve been hearing more and more people misusing “faux pas”.
A faux pas is a *social * mistake. It not just a screw-up … it’s a screw-up involving rude behavior or a lapse of etiquette. Forgetting to buy milk on the way home is not a faux pas! Tripping over your cat and breaking your favorite coffee mug is not a faux pas! Forgetting the name of the president of France during an interview on CNN is a gaffe, but it’s not a faux pas!
Calling your mother-in-law a bitch when she’s standing right behind you … that’s a faux pas!
Slight hijack, but this makes me remember being a wee youth (well actually, young teen) and my mother was explaining the concept of immaculate conception to a younger sibling of mine. I asked whether or not that meant the Virgin Mary had been artificially inseminated.
I’ll never forget the look of shock & anger on my mother’s face. She looked at me as if I had said I liked to eat dead babies.
Luckily, my uncle (who happens to be a 60s-liberal/hippie priest - think the pastor on “That 70s Show”) was there and thought it was an “interesting point.” Therefore my mom couldn’t do anything to me. (If the priest in the family was amused by it, she couldn’t hit me for being blasphemous.)
Jesus was also born without original sin, and He was true God and true man.
I’d have to say the Immaculate Conception misconception is the one that makes me cringe the most. Enough that I asked opinions about the appropriate response. I don’t expect people to necessarily know what it means, but don’t use it if you don’t. And Catholics should know better!! I know all that is probably expecting too much.
I used to say “With a little effort, I could care less . . . but it’s just not worth the effort”, which adds insult to insult (or at least that was my goal).
If Jesus was also born immaculate, how is it inaccurate to refer to that process as an Immaculate Conception? I know that “The Immaculate Conception” is a phrase which has historically been used for the Virgin Mary, but if somebody says “the Immaculate Conception of Jesus” or whatever, what’s so wrong about that?
I suppose, but I think there is a distinction. Mary was conceived in the normal way that babies are, that is, she had a mommy and a daddy that loved each other very much and then got jiggy wid it. But she was infused with a soul that didn’t have the stain of original sin. That was a unique event in biblical history. Even Adam and Eve were not quite like that, as they were created without parents. Jesus was not born in the normal way, he was just God manifest as man, and appeared through a miracle in Mary’s womb. His conception was not immaculate, being that he didn’t have a human soul to begin with, nor was he ever conceived in the traditional sense.
I know way more about this than a good atheist should.
I agree. Sarcasm and irony require intent. If I say, “That is fascinating!”, you can guage my intent by cues like tone of voice or my history of interest/lack of interest in the topic. If, however, I say “That is fascinating”, believing in my heart of hearts that the phrase is literally equivalent to “I have no interest in the topic”, then I’m not being ironic. I have never heard someone say “I could care less” when I thought, “Ah, he’s using irony.”
Nor have I ever heard someone say it in a way that made me think they’re referencing a second clause that they just aren’t going to say. If you ask someone a question, and that person is feeling playful, he might say, “I could tell you…”, with a pretty immediately recognizable vocal pattern or nonverbal cue that tells you he’s leaving off something. Maybe he puts a little extra stess on “could”, or lets his voice trail off on “you”, or cocks an eyebrow. No one says “I could care less” this way.
Yeah, yeah, language changes, the ship has already sailed, I’m curmudgeon. I need to have reasons for a good fume now and then, though.
