Glenn Knickerbocker    945385 Thu, 24 Jun 04 04:17 AM "Perhaps you think "I could care less" means "In all probability, if I were to think about it, I would ... what it means to some speakers, and even though no one but me has explicitly suggested it in this thread," Actually, I did in message (Email Removed) back on Monday. But I don't mean to suggest it as a likely origin of the expression, just a reasonable post-hoc interpretation. There's a big difference between "I could give a damn" and "I could care less" in this respect. "I couldn't give a damn" is a simple, clear negative statement, and it's easy to make the connection to its ironic inversion. "I couldn't care less" is far more complicated and requires the hearer to untangle three negations the double negative and the conditional to come up with its negative meaning. No way would it have been deliberately inverted for irony. Somebody must have just repeated it wrong and then decided it sounded cool that way. Then the expression was probably cemented as soon as the first person objected to it: "I could care less what he thinks!" "Don't you mean 'couldn't'? If you could care less, you must care some." "Aw, I could care less what you think I should say!" ¬R http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/kartuli "Hush! They sing choruses in public. That's mad enough, I think." Glenn Knickerbocker Difference Between, Negatives, Irony, Conditionals, Expressions, Negations

	Michael West    945395 Thu, 24 Jun 04 04:53 AM "There's a big difference between "I could give a damn" and "I could care less" in this respect. "I couldn't ... negative and the conditional to come up with its negative meaning. No way would it have been deliberately inverted for irony." Except that we did. Some people are better at language than others. You need to realize that among the people who used "I couldn't care less" you would have found two categories: those to whom such quasi-literary turns of phrase were natural, meaningful, and perhaps even clever; and those who simply repeated it without really intuiting its deeper structure. The exact same thing is true for those who, later, began to use the inverted form of the phrase. There were those whose understanding of language allowed them to do such things in a knowing, playful way. And there were, again, those who simply repeated what they heard. It is presumptuous and foolish, I think, to assume that only the second class of people exist. My parents both had tertiary degrees. My mother was a journalism major, a poet and writer. My father worked in large advertising agencies. Word play like this (and like "another think coming") was normal in my family and among those with whom they socialized. My childhood language use was far in advance of my age group, and was in some instances far in advance of my schoolteachers. Think about that when you make pronouncements about what people could and couldn't have done with language. Michael West Melbourne, Australia Michael West Whom, Difference Between, Negatives, Irony, Conditionals, Countries, Australia, Languages, Negations

	Mike Barnes    945651 Thu, 24 Jun 04 07:50 AM "If "I could care less" is gibberish," "It isn't. It's a well-constructed English sentence whose meaning can be understood from the meaning of each of its words. If the amount that I care about something is more than zero, then it's possible for me to care less." What you call meaning is what I call post-hoc rationalisation. What "I couldn't care less" means is that I am incapable of caring less than I do - that I lack flexibility in the amount of care that I'm able to provide. It says nothing about how much I care, only that I'm unable to vary the amount in a downwards direction. If you take the step of interpreting the sentence as an expression of how much I care, it's clear that it means I care little rather than lots. But, without the benefit of years of exposure to this idiom, that's not what the sentence actually means. Compare "I couldn't smoke less", which doesn't mean "I don't smoke". Perhaps my "gibberish" was the wrong word. It's the same sort of gibberish that you see in those hundred-word comma-less sentences in legal agreements (hi, Robert!). Yes, it would be possible to analyse it and extract some meaning from it, but only if you have a brain the size of a planet and you know what it's basically trying to say. ""I could care less" undoubtedly arose because someone wasn't smart enough to understand what "I couldn't care less" meant, ... to say, though obviously no one at least not enough people paused to wonder what it really meant." I wouldn't say "undoubtedly", since there are clearly those who doubt. Have you considered that "I could care less" might have quite deliberate, an ironic send-up of the circumlocution of "I couldn't care less", which then got copied by someone who didn't recognise it for what it was? Irony's like that. Mike Barnes Cheshire, England Mike Barnes Idioms, Sentences, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Languages, Expressions

	Mike Barnes    945656 Thu, 24 Jun 04 08:05 AM "In my experience it's usual for what you call "sarcastic ... really care"), not on logically- analysable-but-basically-gibberish ("I could care less")." "If "I could care less" is gibberish, then I have to assume that the phrase of which it is an inversion, "I couldn't care less", is also gibberish. You can't have it both ways." I'm not trying to have it both ways. I agree that "I couldn't care less" also fits my necessarily-brief-because-of-where-it-is-in-the-sentence description "logically analysable but basically gibberish", and I can't imagine why you thought I might think otherwise. You have to admit, as a method of expression, "I couldn't care less" lacks something in the clarity department. See also my reply to Bob, "What you call meaning...". "Well, it may be gibberish to you, but as kids we used it all the time," A lot of what kids (and adults) say is basically gibberish. There's nothing wrong with that, if it works. "along with things like "big deal", "sure", "very funny", and many other inversions that didn't require "sarcasm indicators"." Those fit my description of "ordinary English", unlike "I could care less". No, they don't need "sarcasm indicators" (I only said they were "usual"), but such brief interjections are not complete sentences and therefore deserve special consideration, if anyone could be bothered. "It's also usual for there to be some sort of sarcasm indicator, e.g. "*Like* I really care", "*Yeah*, I really care", etc." "Those things may be added if the rhetorical situation calls for it, but it wouldn't be natural to insert them ... "He said he's going to beat me up I'm so scared", or "I could care less what he says"." You don't need to insert them. They're already there - "really", "so". "Maybe the kids didn't do sarcasm in your neck of the woods, but we did in mine." Of course we did. But it's interesting that you focus on kids' language. Is "I could care less" a kids' thing? I speak as someone who's never come across it in the wild. Mike Barnes Cheshire, England Mike Barnes Sentences, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Languages, Expressions

	Bob Cunningham    945680 Thu, 24 Jun 04 01:36 PM (some thoughtful things about "I could care less".) I think you're probably right about most of what you said, the main exception being your remarks about "undoubtedly". I think when I say "undoubtedly" it means that I don't doubt, not that no one doubts. If I had said "undoubtably", that would have come closer to the meaning you were addressing. But it still seems to me that it could mean only that I am incapable of doubting. Bob Cunningham

	Raymond S. Wise    945766 Thu, 24 Jun 04 06:17 PM "The idea that "I couldn't care less" is used in ... precise, I have never heard it usedexcept as an idiom." "Thank for the self-correction, because in my family it was used in a plain-and-simple literal sense (not just "some sort" ... escapes your comprehension. If it were "I couldn't care any less than I do" would it make sense to you?" It is not that some literal interpretation of "I could care less" or "I couldnt' care less," for that matter escapes my comprehension, it is that such an interpretation is irrelevant to the discussion of the use of the terms, and in particular irrelevant to the discussion of the origin of "I could care less." We seem to be disagreeing only about the origin of the phrase. Mention was made of Occam's razor in your previous post. To me, the idea that "I could care less" arose from the dropping of "-n't," supported by the negative polarity of "less" is the one which Occam's razor supports. Raymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com Raymond S. Wise Idioms, Negatives, Countries, United States, Negations

	Michael West    945954 Fri, 25 Jun 04 12:49 AM I think it was I who suggested that your "undoubtedly" required qualification, and I accept your graceful justification and withdraw my complaint. Michael West Melbourne, Australia Michael West Countries, Australia

	Michael West    945966 Fri, 25 Jun 04 01:11 AM "What you call meaning is what I call post-hoc rationalisation. What "I couldn't care less" means is that I am ... It says nothing about how much I care, only that I'm unable to vary the amount in a downwards direction." Actually, it can mean either, and perhaps this ambiguity is one more reason why attempts to sort out the evolution of the various meanings has become such a muddle. In an example cited earlier, a fiction writer wrote "he wished he could care less (about someone)." In that sentence, "could care less" means being capable of modifying the amount of caring. In that sense, the phrase could be made negative without changing its literal meaning: "But he couldn't care less." That would mean, in that context, exactly what you said above: that he lacked flexibility in the amount of care that he was able to provide. However, there is another meaning, equally literal and logical, that would be called for in a different context, where "I couldn't care less" means "I care so little that it would be impossible for me to care less"; i.e., I care not at all. Some would consider this an idiom, perhaps because they see it as foreign to their sensibility, but to me it is as straightforward as the other meaning given above. It is the context that provides the clue as to which interpretation is called for. If you need an example, think of the phrase "it couldn't get any worse." There are two possible interpreations: 1. It is so bad that worsening is impossible. 2. Worsening is extremely unlikely. Or the phrase "I couldn't wish for more." 1. There is simply nothing else I could wish for. 2. I am prevented by circumstances from wishing for more. "Have you considered that "I could care less" might have quite deliberate, an ironic send-up of the circumlocution of "I couldn't care less", which then got copied by someone who didn't recognise it for what it was? Irony's like that." That's how I see it, too. Michael West Melbourne, Australia Michael West Idioms, Negatives, Context, Sentences, Countries, Australia, Negations

	Michael West    945967 Fri, 25 Jun 04 01:11 AM "I think it was I who suggested that your "undoubtedly" required qualification, and I accept your graceful justification and withdraw my complaint." Ah, I now see that Mike Barnes raised the same objection. Michael West Melbourne, Australia Michael West Countries, Australia