What are your pet peeves re English usage?

JTT, obviously, if I COULDN'T care less, that means that I do not care at all. And if I COULD care less, that means that I do care to some degree.

Usually when people say "I COULD care less", they really mean to say that they COULDN'T care less, that they do not care at all. But they simply are not listening to what they are saying.

A tin ear for stress and melody, and an obliviousness to the principles of discourse and rhetoric, are important tools of the trade for the language maven. Consider an alleged atrocity committed by today's youth: the expression [I could care less].

The teenagers are trying to express disdain, the adults note, in which case they should be saying [I couldn't care less]. If they could care less than they do, that means that they really do care, the opposite of what they are trying to say.

But if these dudes would stop ragging on teenagers and scope out the construction, they would see that their argument is bogus. The melodies and stresses are completely different, and for a good reason.

The second version is not illogical, it's [sarcastic]. The point of sarcasm is that by making an assertion that is manifestly false or accompanied by ostentatiously mannered intonation, one deliberately implies its opposite. A good paraphrase is, "Oh yeah, as if there were something in the world that I care less about."

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

For many Americans speakers [CdE too] the expression I couldn't care less has lost its negation and the expression is now I could care less, still with the idiomatic meaning "i do not care at all". For these speakers, care less is no longer an NPI [negatively-oriented polarity sensitive item]; could care less has become an idiom with a negative meaning (approximately the opposite of its literal meaning). This is not an uncommon development; it is seen again in the development from "I don't know beans about it "I don't know anything about it" to I know beans about it with the same meaning.

[at page 829 fn18]

I can see how after much time "I don't know beans about it" has come to have the same meaning as its "opposite", "I know beans about it."
But I don't think sufficient time has passed for that to have occured between "I could care less" and "I could NOT care less." It does seem to me that the opposite meanings remain real and that "I could care less" is a simple function of carelessness.

It isn't a question of time, JLN. It's that when a structure is available to users of a language, it can be expanded to include other word collocations. It would be interesting, I suppose, to have been there the first time the phrase under contention was used but even then, is it at all possible that the speaker meant to say that he/she cared a good or great deal? It hardly seems sensible.

By the way, could "I DON'T know beans about it" have the same meaning as "I know [ONLY] beans about it" ?

I think that's entirely possible, JLN.

All languages have their own logic.

Here's a pet peeve of mine: discovering that I've been mispronouncing a word after years of use.

Most recent peeve issue: talking about the new film BABEL. Turns out my pronunciation is 2nd-rate and likely a med-western foible.

Sheesh.

JTT wrote:

All languages have their own logic.

Indeed. So explain please in plain English how

I could care less = I could not care less.

Thanks.

Piffka wrote:

Here's a pet peeve of mine: discovering that I've been mispronouncing a word after years of use.

Most recent peeve issue: talking about the new film BABEL. Turns out my pronunciation is 2nd-rate and likely a med-western foible.

Sheesh.

We always pronounced it BAY-bl. How do they pronounce it in Hollywood?

I couldn't possibly explain it to one who has a preconceived notion of what it SHOULD mean, Steve.

I could possibly explain it to one who has a preconceived notion of what it SHOULD mean, Steve.

Are these two sentences opposite in meaning because one sentence uses the negative form <couldn't> and the other uses the positive form <could>?

Absobloodylutely, Steve!

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