Define for me “respected users of English.” Are those two Clinton examples not good enough for you? Other politicians or members of the elite/ruling class? Or is it English professors? I’m not sure what exactly you’re looking for. It’s pretty common in my experience among educated speakers. I just want to know the ground rules, before I bring up examples of both Bushes, Kerry, both Clintons, etc., using the phrase in common speech, and you saying “it doesn’t count” because they’re not “respected users of English” or something.
That should be enough for any sensible person.
Utter nonsense.
See post 193
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17686360&postcount=193
The reason why I don’t like the ‘mistake or mishearing’ explanation is because it explains nothing about why this idiom has gained ground, and (according the Liberman) is more prevalent in some datasets. A mistake or mishearing may have been made at some point, but to become so prevalent the phrase must fulfil some other criteria - this is where the ‘minimal negative’ theory might have something relevant to say. No-one says that they ‘could care less’ and mean literally that they could care less; this usage is absent from normal speech except in discussions like this. If the negative aspect of this phrase is merely implied, or if the users assume that an unspoken negative in the phrase can be inferred by the listener, then the phrase makes sense - and it also acts as a way of rooting out the literalists in the community.
I did no such thing–you totally misread the bit that you quoted in which I talked about formal writing. Go back and read it more carefully.
Holy crap. So when you asked for “an example of a respected linguist actually using” the phrase, it’s not enough for a linguist to say that he uses it? I have to quote him using it?
Yeah, I think we’re done here. I figured you wouldn’t admit error, but I had no idea the lengths you’d go to to avoid it.
Indeed, in this thread, on one side we have Pinker and Liberman and a poster with a master’s in English. On the other side, we have Grammar Girl and a retired English professor and a bunch of posters who think calling people morons, making jokes about their masturbatory habits, misunderstanding the fallacy of Appeal to Authority and Occam’s razor, and making obviously disingenuous cite requests (Don’t just quote linguists saying they use the phrase, QUOTE THEM USING THE PHRASE!) comprise good arguments.*
This thread will itself be an excellent cite, going forward, of the relative merits of both positions.
- Edit: note that not all of the upset-about-could-care-less folks commit all these rhetorical sins.
If “good” only has one meaning, you’re right.
You’re wrong.
Apology expected any minute.
As for treating my question as a gotcha, don’t be ridiculous. You were the one talking about how adverbs and adjectives were at the crux of the problem, not me; I was just trying to figure out exactly how far afield you’d gone. Don’t blame me for your own confusion.
Already answered:
Please feel no obligation to find examples of W. using “could care less.” I’ll bet there are hundreds!
And, the theory that Pinker et al can eschew the use of ‘could care less’ themselves but still render it SE merely by saying ‘it’s okay to use’ is truly ridiculous. When these professionals say ‘it’s okay to use’ they are not asserting that the usage is Standard English. If Pinker and the other professionals never use the phrase “could care less”, but instead use “couldn’t care less,” then “could care less” is not SE.
It’s okay to use “could care less.” Usage is never Right or Wrong, Correct or Incorrect. But not all usage is Standard English. “Could care less” is not Standard English unless the language professionals (including Man Booker Prize winners, etc.) use it themselves, to express their own reactions.
As pointed pointed out many times in this thread, in the matter of language there is a vast gray area called “preferred usage”.
The publicly accessible OED (I have the complete electronic OED but in an old version with a horrible Win 3.1 interface that I’ve never bothered to migrate or upgrade) cites 39 example usages of “good” of which one relates to well-being and the others have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject.
Whereas in the citations for “well” as an adjective, virtually all relate to well-being.
It should be clear which term is preferred.
Apology expected any minute.
I feel like Abraham Van Helsing. This thread has had about a dozen stakes pounded into its heart, and yet it still lives! 
I’m not considering it “standard English” myself, although I would not be surprised if language professors and Booker prize winners use it. It’s right on the cusp, in my opinion, at this point.
Seriously, out of curiosity, is this such an odd usage to you? Are you an American English speaker?
Do you have no idea how dictionaries work, either? If someone is using one correct meaning of a word, they’re using the word correctly. The number of meanings a word has that are not correct has no relevance. AT ALL.
You also don’t understand what “preferred usage” means, either.
Seriously, the stretches you’re willing to make to defend your positions ought to be embarrassing to you. Ought.
The true ridiculousness here–the true indication that you’re not understanding how language works–is the idea that anybody can render something standard English through any means. That’s not how language works.
Note, though, that if you think Liberman eschews the phrase himself, you’re wrong. Don’t take my word for it: take Liberman’s.
Then you and I have no argument.
I’m acting out of a belief that it’s at best patronizing, and at worst overtly misleading, to tell learners of English that ‘anything goes’. They have a right to know that their listeners and readers will draw conclusions about them based on the language choices they make. They have a right to choose whether to employ SE or not.
It’s not wrong to use “could care less.” But the fact is that it’s not a phrase that is likely to win a speaker or writer respect from language professionals (such as linguistics experts and prize-winning writers). It might win a sense of solidarity with other users of the phrase, I suppose. If users aspire to solidarity with W. and others possessing a similar level of mastery of the language, then, have at it. Everyone to his own taste.*
*Hooray for Wellerisms!
The Oxford Dictionary of American Style quotes journalist George Will as saying “The American people could care less who’s White House Chief of Staff” in a 1994 appearance on This Week with David Brinkley. FWIW The Oxford Dictionary of American Style is anti-“could care less”, so this quote is apparently being offered as an example of what not to do rather than as an attempt to lend legitimacy to the usage. Will does have a Pulitzer though, and while I’m not a fan of his work he doesn’t strike me as someone who’s careless in his use of language.
Who does this? Who tells people that “anything goes”? Did you ever look up sociolinguistic register, as I suggested earlier? Do you not understand THAT EVERY DESCRIPTIVIST IN THE WORLD* knows about register, knows about standard English?
The part you misread before, the part you called a strawman about asking for formal written examples, was in fact where I said that even Liberman’s use of the phrase wouldn’t make it Standard English, and that even though it’s a great phrase for informal discussion, language mavens and other elitist folks scorn it sufficiently that I wouldn’t recommend folks use the phrase in formal writing. For the same reason–the little-knowledge pedants–when I was a college-level writing tutor, I recommended that students not split imperatives or end sentences with prepositions.
Edit: Excellent find, Lamia! And, as I said before, I still don’t think the phrase is Standard English, despite Will’s use of it. No one person can make a phrase standard English. Some day it may become acceptable to language elitists, but not yet.
- not to be taken literally, fercryinoutloud
I agree: that looks like a fair example of a generally-respected user of English employing the “could care less” form.
I don’t know why you continue that line of reasoning when it has been thoroughly debunked. As already stated many, many times in this thread, the ironic opposite of “couldn’t care less” would be “care a great deal”. It would not be “could care less”. That is nonsensical as a form of sarcasm OR irony (I use both words here since you tediously insist on making some trivial distinction between the two). The ONLY reasoning you have to support your position is that which is not present (elipses or a question mark or borrowing of forms from other languages), and there is absolutely no evidence that ANY of those things were EVER present in the phrase, or ever implied.
I don’t know why you continue with this line of reasoning, which has even more strongly been debunked.
That is because the ‘could’ phrase has more power and vitality than its pale, pedantic ancestor. One day you will see this and understand what you are missing.
Oh, that. Really, you’re going to try to play that as your “three” theories against my “one” theory, even though the 3 are basically saying the same thing, that “could care less” is a deliberate form of sarcasm? I’m sorry, but all of those theories are absurd, and they all rely on pure conjecture. You’ll have to do better than a bunch of “maybes” to convince me that a phrase that on its face doesn’t appear the slightest bit ironic or sarcastic, somehow is so.
Why would that need to be “explained”? Nonsensical idioms make it into English all the time, just like mispronunciations do. Why do some people say “Let me axe you a question.”? Do you think everybody had a meeting to discuss the relative merits of “axe” vs. “ask”? Of course not. Somebody said it wrong, and somebody else imitated him. Then somebody imitated him, etc. You’re asking for an explanation of something that needs no more explanation than “shit happens”.
Why? Please state your evidence for this belief.
I believe you are overthinking this. When the average person uses an idiom, I don’t believe he puts any thought into it whatsover. The meaning is understood, so there is no reason for the average person to dissect it. Do you think people say, “My house needs cleaned”, and then think to themselves, “Wait, ‘needs’ implies a future action, yet ‘cleaned’ is past tense. That doesn’t make any sense.” Of course not. They understand what it means to them, and they simply repeat it the way they learned it. We say, “It’s raining cats and dogs”. Do we really think about what that means? No, there’s no need to. When we say, “That’s a piece of cake” or “easy as pie”, does it make any kind of literal sense to us? No, it does not. We hear other people say things, we understand what the phrase has come to mean, and we repeat it.
I have to admit though, your idea that everyone who uses “could care less” somehow all got together with the intention of “rooting out the literalists” is much more amusing.