# "I could care less" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 27, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622 "2014-08-27T11:49:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/141 "2014-08-29T10:33:18Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Against your finely reasoned and lengthy essay I herewith submit my short essay: > > Some moron misheard “couldn’t care less” and regurgitated it as “could care less”. Other morons followed suit. The rest is language history. > > [Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) for my reasoning. This is a mistaken understanding of Occam’s Razor. It’s not intended to be a crutch to hold up arguments devoid of evidence; rather, it favors the explanation with the fewest number of, and smallest, assumptions. Your adorable essay makes at least as many assumptions as Pinker’s theory makes and has less evidence to support it. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/142 "2014-08-29T12:52:44Z")
wolfpup, that’s not a useful argument at all. That sort of argument is very common, but it’s not the correct way to argue for the etymology of a phrase or a word at all. The true etymology is not the one that sounds to you like the simplest one (and in any case different people have different feelings about what the simplest explanation is). The correct way to find out the true etymology of a word or phrase is to look through all the published (and, these days, filmed or televised or preserved in an online media) uses of the term. Using them you can at least narrow down the possible origins of the term. For instance, consider the word “O.K.” There were many explanations for its origin, many of them quite a bit cleverer (and, I suspect, some would say simpler) than the true origin. The true etymology was uncovered in a series of articles by Allen Walker Read in 1964 and 1965. The same is true of the phrase “the whole nine yards.” Some of the work on this etymology was done on the SDMB, in fact. Do a search on the board and you can read about it. Do you have any training in etymology? I have a master’s degree in linguistics and have done a lot of reading about etymology. Etymology is not something that can be done by pure intuition. It actually takes some training. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/143 "2014-08-29T13:25:30Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Turns out that the same corpus that shows the acceptance of “could care less” shows that usages like “their are” occurs hardly at all [Google Ngram Viewer: their are,there are](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=their+are%2Cthere+are&year_start=1800&year_end=2010&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctheir%20are%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthere%20are%3B%2Cc0) Sorry, I dont accept you’re prescriptivist dogma. Usage is not confined to Google books. If you look at message boreds and comment threads all over the internet, you’ll plenty of “their are”. Even on this very message bored geared towards fighting ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/144 "2014-08-29T13:28:55Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > That is correct. As I said, Pinker made his analysis of the intonation back in 1994; since that time the intonation may have changed to approach that of the ‘couldn’t’ version more closely. > > I suppose that is to be expected, since it probably takes more effort to vocalise a sarcastic tone (and on the internet, there is no intonation at all, of course). I was in my twenties in 1994 and there was no difference in intonation when people said “could care less” or “couldn’t care less”, at least around the NYC area. Maybe it was a Canadian thing – that’s where he’s from. I respect the hell out of that guy and I’ve read tons of his stuff. I simply disagree with him on this point. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/145 "2014-08-29T13:33:46Z")
[Grammar Girl](http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/could-care-less-versus-couldnt-care-less) notes that “Other linguists [than Pinker] have argued that the type of sound at the end of “couldn’t” is naturally dropped by sloppy or slurring speakers”—which is tantalizingly vague. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/146 "2014-08-29T13:37:39Z")
sorry for the triple post here (thanks to **thudlow** for breaking it up a bit). i think i’ll give up on capitalization as well – there’s tons of usage all over the internet and i have a recognized literary genius on my side. [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings). ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/147 "2014-08-29T14:03:22Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I suppose the bottom line is that some proportion of those who use “could care less” **will greatly resent being told that it’s non-standard**. And of that number, some proportion will declare that they are using it intentionally, because it’s (fill in the blank) sarcastic or an evolution or what the cool kids are saying. bolding mine I would assume so, since being castigated for appropriate behavior generally riles. I can’t speak to British English; I believe there is still a stigma to the phrase, but at least in general american speech, “could care less” is unremarkable. No one cares about it except in online forums and jeremiad columns by agony aunts. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Perhaps the difference of opinion is the difference between what may have already happened and the directions that some of us are advocating in the interests of improving the language rather than degrading it. That’s a baseless worry. By its very nature language cannot be degraded. We are not computer programs that senselessly take in inputs, perform a prescribed set of functions to it and output the results willy-nilly. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/148 "2014-08-29T14:04:58Z")
“Their are” may occur frequently in online media, but it hardly ever appears in print media. This gives us important information about its use. The things that appear in online media are often not generally accepted in print. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/149 "2014-08-29T14:09:54Z")
Here’s a post by Mark Liberman, who disagrees with Pinker, but gives an even more interesting explanation for the shift in phaseology [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001209.html](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001209.html) > [@](#): > > ‘Could care less’ probably lost its “not” by means of a process that John Lawler has called “negation by association”. This process also apparently happens in French, and in the phrases “I could give a {damn|shit|hoot|(flying) fuck|crap|rat’s ass}”, one of which has already been mentioned in this thread. Since there are a large number of phrases which follow the same pattern in various languages, this does seem to imply a repeating process rather than a simple mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/150 "2014-08-29T14:10:54Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Sorry, I dont accept you’re prescriptivist dogma. Usage is not confined to Google books. If you look at message boreds and comment threads all over the internet, you’ll plenty of “their are”. Even on this very message bored geared towards fighting ignorance. Is this how physicists feel when Deepak Chopra natters on about quantum consciousness? ---
**Author:** ![Osiris\_the\_1st](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de0a6/32.png) [@Osiris\_the\_1st](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osiris_the_1st)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/151 "2014-08-29T14:20:38Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > A quick google finds this; > [Caring About Whether You Couldn't Care Less - Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/g09.html) > I disagree strongly that the ‘I could care less’ version is senseless; it has an inventive inversion or implication that makes the listener think. In fact it seems to be an evolved form of the original idiom, which is somewhat dull and pedestrian. I’ve always interpreted “I could care less.” as being shorthand for “As if I could care less.” At least that’s the way my brain makes sense of it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/152 "2014-08-29T14:28:06Z")
> [@Osiris\_the\_1st](#): > > I’ve always interpreted “I could care less.” as being shorthand for “As if I could care less.” At least that’s the way my brain makes sense of it. I was going to suggest that as well. In similar constructions like “I could give a damn about him” I mentally fill in an elided “like” at the beginning of the sentence. So that’s another hypothesis. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. It’s a firmly entrenched idiom, and one I now favor over the literal version. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/153 "2014-08-29T14:38:05Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > What’s happened in the case of “I could care less” is than the phrase has frozen so that it’s no longer necessary to indicate by intonation that it means the exact opposite. There was a thread by someone years ago in which he discussed the fact that he can no longer use “Brilliant!” except as a joke telling someone that something is really stupid. So it’s possible in a language for a “not” understood only in context to be frozen in meaning and to no longer be necessary to say. An interesting example in a foreign language is the case of “pas” in French - it literally means “step” but it has become the indicator for a negative statement. Apparently, what happened is that at one point, sentences like “He will not walk” (in French, using the French negative word), received an emphasizing word at the end “He will not walk a step,” or “He will not eat a crumb,” etc. For some reason, French speakers began to associate the word “step” (“pas” in French) with the negation, rather than as an emphasis; speakers began to use pas at the end of all sorts of other sentences, originally with the negative word also in the middle of the sentence, but if I understand correctly, often with just the “pas” at the end. So a sentence that a word-for-word translation would be interpreted by a native French speaker as “He will vote, step” is understood as “He won’t vote.” ---
**Author:** ![gthull644](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@gthull644](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gthull644)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/154 "2014-08-29T14:40:28Z")
Remember hearing this in an episode of Sopranos. It was said with a shrug of the shoulders and a questioning tone. Said as a question it makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/155 "2014-08-29T15:29:37Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Is this how physicists feel when Deepak Chopra natters on about quantum consciousness? That analogy is apt. Not. So, which experiment can we run to determine whether Pinker, Liberman, or **wolfpup** is correct? Anyway, so is your view that there is no room for prescriptivism at all? I honestly cannot tell. Once usage is in sufficient books, then it’s OK? Is it that all that linguists can do is keep track and report on usage, and not actually have an opinion on clearer and less clear usage? A few posters here seem like radical descriptivists. You know what? Don’t answer – I feel like this is off in GD land, not GQ land. Sorry for the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/156 "2014-08-29T15:55:12Z")
> [@gthull644](#): > > Remember hearing this in an episode of Sopranos. It was said with a shrug of the shoulders and a questioning tone. Said as a question it makes sense. Yeah, but in fairness, _The Sopranos_ also gave us linguistic innovations like “she’s an albacore around my neck” and “I was prostate with grief!” ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/157 "2014-08-29T16:17:20Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Anyway, so is your view that there is no room for prescriptivism at all? I honestly cannot tell. Once usage is in sufficient books, then it’s OK? Is it that all that linguists can do is keep track and report on usage, and not actually have an opinion on clearer and less clear usage? Anyone can have an opinion on what they think is clear and less clear. It’s being able to say, “Regardless of my feelings on the matter, construction X is preferred by this population of speakers and therefore has utility.” ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/158 "2014-08-29T16:24:14Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Anyway, so is your view that there is no room for prescriptivism at all? Sure, there’s room for prescriptivism. Sometimes it’s like **According to Hoyle**. Sometimes it’s like **The Air Force Manual of Codes**. Sometimes it’s like **Emily Post’s Guide to Manners**. It’s never like **Principia Mathematica**. Sometimes we use prescriptivism to establish common rules for communication when a lack of rules genuinely hurts communication, as in orthography. This is like Hoyle’s rules for card games. Note that that doesn’t apply to our current situation, where everyone know what’s meant, and communication isn’t honestly hurt at all. Sometimes prescriptivism is a shibboleth, allowing gatekeepers to keep unwanted parties from joining in communication. This is like the Air Force Code Manual (I konw they have one because I watched Dr. Strangelove). Sometimes it’s used to establish manners for a particular environment, as Emily Post’s guidebook does. If your argument is that a prohibition on “I could care less,” like a book of passwords, allows the sneering elite to look down their noses at the hoi polloi, you’re absolutely right. It functions as a shibboleth. If your argument is that a prohibition on “I could care less,” like a book of etiquette, keeps certain arbitrary social norms in place, you’re absolutely right. It functions as a conservative pull on social norms. If your argument is that a prohibition on “I could care less” is rational or derived from a study of language, as Principia Mathematica is derived from a rational study of founding principles, you’re wrong. The prohibition is arbitrary and nonsensical. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/159 "2014-08-29T16:34:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If your argument is that a prohibition on “I could care less,” like a book of passwords, allows the sneering elite to look down their noses at the hoi polloi, you’re absolutely right. It functions as a shibboleth. And it’s not a particularly good shibboleth. You can find that expression used in the speech of plenty of the ruling class (Clinton, Bush, Kerry, etc. Heck, it’s in Clinton’s [presidential papers, even.](http://books.google.com/books?id=MSPhAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=%22i+could+care+less%22+speech+clinton&source=bl&ots=WvtHfpFrUG&sig=GXvjh_8Lsz1rp6X_jnzm6Xky61M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=a6oAVO7_MtaVgwSrqYGwBg&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22i%20could%20care%20less%22%20speech%20clinton&f=false)) It’s not a very good indicator of anything at all. It’s just an everyday, run-of-the-mill idiom. ---
**Author:** ![dunkleosteus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkleosteus/32/9331_2.png) [@dunkleosteus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dunkleosteus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622/160 "2014-08-29T16:40:56Z")
It’s well and good to accept idioms at face value instead of over analyzing them- many of them arose at times when english grammar was either not widely taught or very different in structure than it is today. An example of an accepted phrase as such might be “How do you do?”, in which case the second “do” is used in a way that it is rarely used today. I use that merely as an example of a more archaic phrase that has survived. With that in mind, it is understandable that many idioms would contain improper/odd grammar or structure. Now though, in an age when education is mandated and the grammatical guides and laws are set, should we still allow phrases or idioms to devolve and break these rules? Do we allow new phrases to be exempt as the grandfathered, older phrases are? As we are, we’re actively creating exceptions for the rules that govern how we communicate. Would it be too great an extension that other colloquialisms that break grammatical rules become acceptable, such as misuse of many/much or number/amount? Questions aside, I don’t think it’s right for us -fully aware of the process- to ignore it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-could-care-less/696622.md?page=9)