Why do Americans say they 'could care less'

[vivaldirules]

I think the intent of "I couldn't care less...." is that I care so little now that it would not be possible for me to care any less.

[Sparrow]

Another common sloppy UK expression is 'I don't know nothing' - although it comes in useful in police interrogations, because you might actually be telling the truth, and do know something - but it will be taken as a denial.

Good for those lie detector situations.

[mjh215]

Sorry Sparrow, I've never given it much thought. I could not care less...

-MJ

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by mjh215

Sorry Sparrow, I've never given it much thought. I could not care less...

-MJ

There's always one; and it's always you!

[slayda]

Perhaps saying "could care less" when meaning "couldn't care less" is like saying "You bad!" when menaing "You're very good."

I once tried to catalog all the words that were used to mean "good", e.g. neat, cool, good, & bad were some of the words on that list.

I also find it interesting when people use the word for cool differently. It's pronounced cool when refering to temperature but "kewl" when refering to attitude.

[badgoodDeb]

"I could care less" is meant to be sarcastic --- meaning that really, I could NOT care less, because I care so very little already. But people leave off the sarcasm, and then it just plain doesn't make sense!

But they aren't "readers" and so very literate, like all of us!

[Elfwreck]

I think it's a mixup of two phrases: "I couldn't care less," and "...as if I could care less." And the latter sometimes gets condensed to "I could care less," which generally makes no sense in context.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Another common sloppy UK expression is 'I don't know nothing' - although it comes in useful in police interrogations, because you might actually be telling the truth, and do know something - but it will be taken as a denial.

Good for those lie detector situations.

Only if the interrogator is asking the possible criminal if he "don't know nothing". When taking a polygraph, you are told to only answer "yes" or "no". Anything longer can skew the the results.

Kaz

[JSWolf]

I don't care at all about this thread. So I could not care less unless I was dead.

[rebarnmom]

Originally Posted by slayda

Perhaps saying "could care less" when meaning "couldn't care less" is like saying "You bad!" when menaing "You're very good."

I once tried to catalog all the words that were used to mean "good", e.g. neat, cool, good, & bad were some of the words on that list.

Another example:
Just the other night on American Idol I heard, I think Randy, say to one of the performers "that was a bomb" as if it was something good. The last I heard was that if you bombed, you did bad!

[Andybaby]

another one i hear alot is

evendavegas Idea

A-Ven-Da-Va-gus Idea

if you still haven't got its at the bottom

btw, i always say, I could NOT care less. and i enunciate the Not always. it ussually gets me a look while they figure out how stupid they are for saying it without the not.

I haven't the vaguest idea

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It's used either as a shorthand for "couldn't care less"... or simply as sarcasm.

This is how it started, I believe, but I think at this point people just repeat the phrase as idiom and don't worry about the literal meaning.

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Not all do. Whenever I've used that expression, I say "couldn't care less". You often hear people say "could care less" simply out of ignorance, much as when I hear or see people use the expression "for all intensive purposes". If you try to correct them, "do you mean 'for all intents and purposes'?", the likely reaction is a blank look.

That one drives me nuts. There are some other phrases like that -- phrases that sound vaguely like another over-used phrase, but make no sense -- but I am mercifully unable to recall any of them right now.

Another one is "beg the question" which doesn't mean what most people think it does. I tracked it down to a conflation between the historical "beg the question" (dating back at least to ancient Greek) and "beget the question" from the mid 1800's (if I recall correctly).

With the "I" and "me" mixup, are we talking about "Susie and me went to the store"/"Joe went to the store with Susie and I"? That's another one that is very irritating. I only correct my kids on that one, though. (And they have the quite reasonable excuse that their first language -- Mandarin Chinese -- doesn't distinguish between subject and object pronouns. I've completely given up on correcting "who" vs. "whom" with them for that reason.)

I also hate this sort of thing -- saw this on a sign outside a car wash today: "Mom's love clean cars!" Now, this could be corrected in a number of ways, including a sort of telegraphic headline like "Mom's love: Clean cars!" But my money is on the more common confusion between the possessive and the plural.

Oddly, I can be more forgiving of there/their/they're and to/too/two, especially in international forum websites.

[6charlong]

And why do “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing? Shouldn’t they be opposites?

[Wetdogeared]

irregardless...

[Donnageddon]

This topic is the cat's pajamas.

... or perhaps the bee's knees?