Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
Price is synonymous with worth, yet priceless and worthless are antonyms.
The point I was making is that, according to the usual rules of English words, in- is a negative prefix. E.g., inconclusive is the opposite of conclusive, ineligible is the opposite of eligible. But then English has some words that don't follow the pattern, like invaluable and inestimable and inflammable.
It's a quirky, fascinating language, and whether you approve or not, just as in- sometimes doesn't mean what it's "supposed" to mean, I couldn't care less and its apparent opposite, I could care less, mean pretty much the same thing.
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I still cannot agree.
Sometimes words don't follow the patterns, fair enough. However, most people know about those words, and they have always had these special meanings.
You can't take out a word out of a sentence ("not", in the case of "I could care less") which basically causes the meaning of the sentence to reverse, and then say: "It still means the same because everybody will know what I mean!". In my view, that's just ridiculous and illogical. It's sloppy use of language.