"I could care less"

[Bones_Daley]

The sarcastic thing doesn’t ring true for me …any time I have heard “I could care less” there were no overtones of sarcasm … this is especially the case when "I could care less " precedes a clause beginning with “if” .

Now, if somebody said , in response to some observation “Yeah, like I could care less” then that would be a valid piece of sarcasm. That, however, is hardly ever how the phrase is (mis)used.

I am disappointed that I have lost my bet btw …

[CurtC]

@eburacum45

This argument could also apply to ‘Tell me about it’ and ‘I should be so lucky’, both of which are sarcastic expressions of the opposite sense to the phrase concerned.

They’re sarcastic? I interpret both those expressions on their face to be what they are.

“Tell me about it” = “You and I could both make many points which reinforce your idea.”

“I should be so lucky” = “I wish I were so lucky.”
Neither of those seem to mean the opposite sense to their plain wording.

[Inner_Stickler]

@Max_the_Immortal

They may be semantically equivalent, but “I could care less” has a “this is how stupid people talk” vibe to it.

Analyses of english corpora do not bear this opinion out. You may feel that way about it, but you would be an outlier.

[The_Second_Stone]

@CurtC

They’re sarcastic? I interpret both those expressions on their face to be what they are.

“Tell me about it” = “You and I could both make many points which reinforce your idea.”

“I should be so lucky” = “I wish I were so lucky.”
Neither of those seem to mean the opposite sense to their plain wording.

“You’re a moron who can’t even use the English language correctly.” “I could care less.”

[Killing_Time]

The correct expression is “I couldn’t care less”. “I could care less” is simply a mistake, and gets repeated by people who aren’t thinking about what they’re saying. It’s similar to people using the word “literally” when they mean “figuratively”, e.g. “I was literally green with envy”.

[OffByOne]

“Help” desk operator to customer: “Let me put you on hold while I see if there is anyone here that cares less about your issue than I do.”

(Thirty minutes later…)

“Nope, soory, you’re stuck with me.”

[The_Second_Stone]

@Killing_Time

The correct expression is “I couldn’t care less”. “I could care less” is simply a mistake, and gets repeated by people who aren’t thinking about what they’re saying. It’s similar to people using the word “literally” when they mean “figuratively”, e.g. “I was literally green with envy”.

Said the fellow painted N on the front and V on the back.

[The_Second_Stone]

“You don’t care about my problems at all.”

“I could care less.”

[CalMeacham]

Looking at my favorite go-to site for use, Google N-gram, shows that, aside from an anomalous blip in the 1880a, “I could care less” starts showing up with a slow ramp in the 1950s, then takes off in the 1960s.

Google Books Ngram Viewer

“I couldn’t care less” starts about the 1940s (aside from its own, minor anomalous blips), and is clearly the older expression:

Google Books Ngram Viewer

Google N-gram viewer mixes both US and UK sources, so it’s not possible to separate the two. It seems virtually certain to me, as others have stated above, that “I could not care less” is the original (and logical) phrase, and that “I could not care less” is a sarcastic or humorous “take” on the phrase. The evidence would seem to support that.

[pulykamell]

@Andy_L

Exactly. It’s just like any number of other idiomatic phrases that have evolved into forms that no longer make literal sense.

Exactly. I use it predominantly now just because it pisses off pedants and literalists.

[Andy_L]

@CalMeacham

Google N-gram viewer mixes both US and UK sources, so it’s not possible to separate the two. It seems virtually certain to me, as others have stated above, that “I could not care less” is the original (and logical) phrase, and that “I could not care less” is a sarcastic or humorous “take” on the phrase. The evidence would seem to support that.

You can select American or British English, if you want - click the button by ‘corpus’ to choose.

[CalMeacham]

@Andy_L

You can select American or British English, if you want - click the button by ‘corpus’ to choose.

But will that changes the nature of the sources? I don’t care about switching between “color” and “colour”

[Sherrerd]

Originally Posted by Max the Immortal View Post
They may be semantically equivalent, but “I could care less” has a “this is how stupid people talk” vibe to it.

@Inner_Stickler

Analyses of english corpora do not bear this opinion out.

Citation?

@Inner_Stickler

You may feel that way about it, but you would be an outlier.

I suspect that there are many people who use this sort of thing as an informal means of assessing the level of education of new acquaintances. Habitual use of phrases like these offer information to the listener:

[ul]
[li]I could care less.[/li][li]I was literally freezing![/li][li]Joe brought extra blankets for Chris and I (or Between you and I, Joe’s a doll!)[/li][li]I would of sent it yesterday, but it wasn’t ready.[/li][li]Commodity prices will play a factor in the next election.[/li][li]Are you inferring that these pants make me look fat?[/li][li]This latest crisis could mean nucular war.[/li][/ul]

These aren’t Wrong. But they are revelatory.

@Killing_Time

The correct expression is “I couldn’t care less”. “I could care less” is simply a mistake, and gets repeated by people who aren’t thinking about what they’re saying. It’s similar to people using the word “literally” when they mean “figuratively”, e.g. “I was literally green with envy”.

I agree. I’m not seeing credible evidence that the “could” usage is subtle or layered or even sarcastic, as has been claimed (sorry, Professor Pinker!)

[Andy_L]

@CalMeacham

But will that changes the nature of the sources? I don’t care about switching between “color” and “colour”

I think it alters the sources - I got noticeably different results for “British English” than American English earlier today when I was trying it on could/ could not care…

[pulykamell]

@Sherrerd

Habitual use of phrases like these offer information to the listener:

[ul]
[li]I would of sent it yesterday, but it wasn’t ready.[/li][/ul]

These aren’t Wrong. But they are revelatory.

Wait, in spoken English (which is what I assume, since you say “listener.”) There is absolutely nothing wrong with “would of” as spoken. It’s merely a misspelling of “would’ve.” They sound the same and I’ve never heard of anyone having a problem with “would’ve.”

As for the others, I disagree strongly with many of them, especially the emphatic use of “literally.” “Nucular” is another one. I know plenty of smart, educated folk who use the non-standard “nucular” pronunciation. It says absolutely nothing to me about the speaker’s education level. Nothing.

[wolfpup]

@eburacum45

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.

Wha…??? “I couldn’t care less” has a meaning. The meaning is this: that in the matter of caring, I couldn’t possibly have less of it!" That is, I care not at all. “I could care less” is certainly not in any way the same meaning. It is at best ambiguous, and at worst the opposite. It is the result of functional illiteracy, where a misspoken bloviation is supposed to convey a meaning based on some vague similarity to the original, actually meaningful, expression.

@njtt

that the speaker is a moron!

I see nothing inventive about it. It is just a result of thoughtlessness.

Thank you, so I didn’t have to say it.

[wolfpup]

@pulykamell

There is absolutely nothing wrong with “would of” as spoken. It’s merely a misspelling of “would’ve.”

I beg to differ. We say “would have” and slur the words together, and it can be written as “would’ve” which is generally considered an acceptable contraction in informal usage. Someone who writes “would of” or “could of” is an illiterate moron who clearly never understood the original construct. Although personally – in this specific case – I could care less. I care only a moderate amount, as I dislike morons.

[pulykamell]

@wolfpup

I beg to differ. We say “would have” and slur the words together, and it can be written as “would’ve” which is generally considered an acceptable contraction in informal usage. Someone who writes “would of” or “could of” is an illiterate moron who clearly never understood the original construct. Although personally – in this specific case – I could care less. I care only a moderate amount, as I dislike morons.

“Would of” slightly grates on me, insomuch as I spell it “would’ve” when I write it, because that’s the way it’s supposed to be spelled. But it’s a perfectly cromulent contraction. If you judge people because they say “would’ve/would of,” then I would, I admit, have a somewhat negative judgment of you.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

It’s interesting that thread has gathered so many of the pedants who have offered opinions so consistent with their opinions in other threads.

It is also interesting that not one of them has produced a single cite or expert analysis to back up these opinions.

So I’ll have to do it for them. Arnold Zwicky at Language Log is dubious about Pinker’s suggestion that it is sarcasm, although he mentions that he has personally heard sarcastic uses of it. His somewhat convoluted argument is that while it is possible that sarcasm was involved in its origin it has since become merely a solecism. He admits that it is difficult to test this.

I would caution about our board pedants about gloating. His reasons for doubt are a litany of all the mistakes about language that they assert with thudding frequency in all the language threads.

In its textbook manifestation, the etymological fallacy has to do with semantics. People maintain that “decimate” can’t mean ‘almost entirely wipe out’ because it really means ‘wipe out one-tenth of’. Or that “since” and “while” can only be used as temporal connectives, not as logical ones (meaning, roughly, ‘because’ and ‘although’), because that was their original meaning. (“Original” is, of course, a moving target here.) What’s going on here is a reluctance to recognize change, and that idea can be applied to all sorts of innovations: a [t] in “often” or an [l] in “walk” (note that these things can come around in cycles); the use of past forms in counterfactual conditionals (“if I was your father”); plural subject-verb agreement with “none” (“None of the students were prepared”), because “none” is really “not one” and therefore singular; and so on.

Another manifestation of the etymological fallacy shows up in the way many ordinary people (PITS, People In The Street) think of non-standard, innovative, regional, informal, etc. usages. Many of these usages have their origins in what could broadly be labeled as “mistakes” or “errors” – via regularization, reanalysis, generalization, hypercorrection, and the like – and PITS are inclined to see them as still errors still, as (inadvertent) failures to attain the correct usage. This attitude towards variation leads to what I think of as the Repetition Annoyance Syndrome, or RAS: PITS are mightily annoyed when speakers or writers keep producing the manifestly incorrect usages, time after time. “There he goes again”, they cry out in exasperation, as “She talked with Tom and I about it” is succeeded by “That really pleased Tom and I” and so on, one nominative coordinate object pronoun after another, in what strikes many PITS who abhor this construction as a perverse indulgence in error.

I may adopt PITS as a collective noun for them.

[pulykamell]

@Exapno_Mapcase

So I’ll have to do it for them. Arnold Zwicky at Language Log is dubious about Pinker’s suggestion that it is sarcasm, although he mentions that he has personally heard sarcastic uses of it.

These days, I do agree that Pinker’s argument is weak. I do think, however, that there is some merit to his statement that the stress pattern of “I could care less,” as usually said, is a little different than a straight reading. That said, it’s not the usual sarcastic tone. My own opinion is that it’s just an idiom, and it doesn’t have to make sense. I chalk it up as a humorous subversion of the literal phrase, or something to that effect. Or I sometimes hear it as ending with a trailing ellipsis, like “I could care less … but I don’t” or something in that vein. It’s never been a usage that bugged me.