"I COULD care less" or "I COULDN'T care less" Which is it?

Both are valid, but in different ways.

"I couldn't care less" would be to say, your patience has evaporated, and you are completely apathetic to the situation.

"I could care less" would be to convey spite or antipathy facetiously. As if to say, "oh, if you think I don't care now, just wait until - I'll show you how I can really not care!" It, of course, is not intended to be literal.

More often than not, the former is the more appropriate choice. You need the right circumstance to pull off the second one.

3 Replies

@RealEyes,

Welcome to the Forum, Real Eyes

David

0 Replies

@RealEyes,

Quote:

More often than not, the former is the more appropriate choice. You need the right circumstance to pull off the second one.

Yes, welcome to the forum, RealEyes. I find I must disagree with your assessment above. To my mind, it's impossible to ascribe the same feelings to every person, for every situation.

USA region only, exact phrase google search for "could care less"

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,080,000 English pages for "could care less"

================

USA region only, exact phrase google search for "couldn't care less"

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,060,000 English pages for "couldn't care less"

====================

The idiom, could care less has come to mean exactly what couldn't care less means and both are used in identical situations.

1 Reply

@JTT,

David - your insistence on this point is rather puzzling to me. You and I both know that:
I could care less
I couldn't care less
Who cares?
I don't care
It's all the same to me
Whatever
Wake me up when it's over
Who gives a flying **** (I know you don't like profanity so I used asterisks)

all mean the same thing: that the speaker doesn't care. If it were at all based on logic, that means that when you asked someone, 'Who cares?' you'd be expecting an answer - perhaps a specific name or at least someone to say, 'no one cares...'
But you already know that means that the speaker believes no one cares or at least that there's not good reason for anyone to care - and that s/he in fact doesn't.

It's like how you're expecting us to suspend our expectations for precision and correctness when you post and have us automatically read and accept 'enuf' as 'enough'.
If you can ask others to do that in terms of your spelling preferences, why can't you do it when others state their idiomatic/language preferences- even if they're different from yours?

2 Replies

@aidan,

Quote:

why can't you do it when others state their idiomatic/language preferences- even if they're different from yours?

That's the odd thing about this, Aidan, is that David knows full well that he's flat out wrong because even in his world they mean the same thing.

That he knows this to be true and still attempts to mislead others leads one to suspect that he is void of any measure of honesty.

Language is never run by individual preferences. That's what has made prescriptivists like David the laughingstock of the language world.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

That he knows this to be true and still attempts to mislead others leads one to suspect that he is void of any measure of honesty.

I hesitate to answer for him except to say that I think it has less to do with lack of honesty and more to do with feeling that it was incumbent upon him to have honed his language skills in his profession and that precision in that arena was crucial in terms of performing his professional duties.

But these idomatic phrases wouldn't really fall under that umbrella; at least I can't imagine that they would in terms of his own usage in his profession. It seems he may be forgetting that.
I could be rong tho... Laughing

2 Replies

@aidan,

aidan wrote:

Quote:

David - your insistence on this point is rather puzzling to me.
You and I both know that:
I could care less
I couldn't care less
Who cares?
I don't care
It's all the same to me
Whatever
Wake me up when it's over
Who gives a flying ****
(I know you don't like profanity so I used asterisks)

My objection has been to the repugnance of scatological references,
not to all profanity.

Quote:

all mean the same thing: that the speaker doesn't care.

There r variations in meaning among your exemplified utterances.

Quote:

If it were at all based on logic, that means that when you asked someone, 'Who cares?'
you'd be expecting an answer - perhaps a specific name or at least someone to say, 'no one cares...'

Sometimes that has been forthcoming,
including, but not limited to, the hearer declaring HIMSELF
as being a person who cares.

Quote:

But you already know that means that the speaker believes
no one cares or at least that there's not good reason for anyone
to care - and that s/he in fact doesn't.
It's like how you're expecting us to suspend our expectations
for precision and correctness when you post and have us automatically read and accept 'enuf' as 'enough'.

I must reject this analysis in that that is not what I expect
and the precise and correct way to spell the word is NOT
how it is spelled in the dictionaries or most other people spell it.
The dictionaries r corrupt with error; illogic,
the same as if u find a math book that asserts that 5 + 5 = 12.
The dictionaries and those people r rong because thay cling to
and perpetuate the opposite of intelligence,
the opposite of logic and of efficiency.

It is as if everyone were driving around with a flat tire on each of his cars,
refusing to change it, in deference to tradition because it has been flat for a long time,
and I was driving around with 4 tires all intact, properly inflated
and thay accuse ME of being rong.

When Columbus said that the world is round
it did not matter how many detractors complained that it is flat;
Columbus was still precisely and correctly right.
Me too

Quote:

If you can ask others to do that in terms of your spelling preferences,
why can't you do it when others state their idiomatic/language
preferences- even if they're different from yours?

Sound logic is inflexible.

If everyone claims that 2 + 2 = 7,
I will refuse to co-operate and insist on the correct result of 4.

David

0 Replies

@aidan,

aidan wrote:

Quote:
That he knows this to be true and still attempts to mislead others
leads one to suspect that he is void of any measure of honesty.

I hesitate to answer for him except to say that I think it has less to do with lack of honesty
and more to do with feeling that it was incumbent upon him to have honed his language skills
in his profession and that precision in that arena was crucial in terms of performing his professional duties.

But these idomatic phrases wouldn't really fall under that umbrella;
at least I can't imagine that they would in terms of his own usage in his profession.
It seems he may be forgetting that.
I could be rong tho...

It has to do with conceptual precision,
as distinct from sloppy thinking.

If I find a man to be a sloppy thinker, then my opinion of him will fall
and then I 'll be less likely to entrust much of value to his care.

Accepting a sloppy thinker woud be like having a brain surgeon
promising to keep his hands clean most of the time, during surgery
or an accountant who offers me his services
assuring me that some of his work is accurate.

It occurred to me to briefly take the quoted individual off ignore
to dispute his quoted defamations, but on reflection, because I consider him
to be mentally disabled (in terms of ability to reason),
with a very short memory, it seems pointless; like arguing with Gracie Allen.

Let it suffice to make the point that he (figuratively) carries the flag
for the opposite of logic. It was by the application of competent logic
that we rose to the top of the food chain.
He advocates chaos in preference to clear thought processes.
Discourse with him has proven to be hopeless.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

If I find a man to be a sloppy thinker, then my opinion of him will fall
and then I 'll be less likely to entrust much of value to his care.

You've shown nothing but sloppy thinking on this issue, David and you continue to supply a steady stream of bafflegab instead of addressing the actual language issues. You should issue an apology to all those that you've maligned with your sense of "logic".

0 Replies

@aidan,

Quote:

I hesitate to answer for him except to say that I think it has less to do with lack of honesty and more to do with feeling that it was incumbent upon him to have honed his language skills in his profession and that precision in that arena was crucial in terms of performing his professional duties.

It's abundantly clear that it's only a matter of honesty, really the lack thereof, on David's part, Aidan.

I've provided a number of examples that show that his central premise simply does not hold for English.

=========
He knows squat = He doesn't know squat

That amounts to a hill of beans = That doesn't amount to a hill of beans

A: An affirmative cannot connote or denote a negative.

B: Yeah, right. [with the right intonation]

=============

He is truly a fraud, a fraud of the highest order for he knows that he is wrong, dead wrong yet he doesn't have near the gumption necessary to acknowledge it.

That he goes to great effort to pull this discussion off on silly tangents about being too disgusted to deal with scatological references is really beyond the pail [for McTag Smile

]

That a man like David who brags about wrecking people's lives by aligning himself with scum like Joe McCarthy, that a man like David who relishes the murder, rape and torture caused by and supported by his government should be offended by words that are of the English language is the dictionary definition of beyond the pale.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

A couple that really get to me are:

bald faced liar - It's supposed to be BOLD faced liar.
irrevelant - There is this one woman that says irrevelant for irrelevant. I told her over and over what the word was. She said she looked it up in the dictionary. Shocked

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

That he goes to great effort to pull this discussion off on silly tangents about being too disgusted to deal with scatological references is really beyond the pail [for McTag ]

What are you basin this opinion on?

Tee heee hee

0 Replies

@Arella Mae,

No, it's bare-faced liar. In this neck of the woods, anyways.

1 Reply

@McTag,

'bald', I believe for most of NaE though I guess there could be regional differences.

1 Reply

@JTT,

I don't see how it can be bald-faced anything since baldness refers only to the head, even in metaphor, does it not?

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

I don't see how it can be bald-faced anything since baldness refers only to the head,
even in metaphor, does it not?

Yes; it does not;
even if it DID, the face is part of the head.

David

1 Reply

A somewhat remote similarity
is referring to a daylight robbery,
meaning not concealed by darkness, but open to be freely seen.

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OSD, even you must entertain the suspicion at times that you are barking mad.

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

OSD, even you must entertain the suspicion at times that you are barking mad.

I might be a little annoyed,
but I am not mad at u.

I am silent most of the time.

Barking woud be both futile
and too ruff on the vocal cords.

I already have what I want, anyway.

David

0 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

even if it DID, the face is part of the head.

Is it? A facial injury is not a head injury. And vice versa.

A clean-shaven man can have a thick head of hair.

So I don't know what you "have got" which seems to please you so much, but it is not a reasonable position.

2 Replies

"I COULD care less" or "I COULDN'T care less" Which is it?

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