The idiom “couldn’t care less”, meaning “doesn’t care at all”

(the meaning in full is “cares so little that he couldn’t possibly

care less”), originated in Britain around 1940. “Could care less”,

which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around

1960. We get disputes about whether the latter was originally a

mis-hearing of the former; whether it was originally ironic; or

whether it arose from uses where the negative element was separated

from “could” (“None of these writers could care less…”). Henry

Churchyard believes that this sentence by Jane Austen may be

pertinent: “You know nothing and you care less, as people say.”

(Mansfield Park (1815), Chapter 29) Meaning-saving elaborations

have also been suggested: “As if I could care less!”; “I could care

less, but I’d have to try”; “If I cared even one iota — which I

don’t –, then I could care less.”

very good question though…it makes me think.

“Stephen Pinker, in The Language Instinct, points out that the pattern of intonation in the two versions is very different.

“There’s a close link between the stress pattern of ‘I could care less’ and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is ‘I should be so lucky!’, in which the real sense is often ‘I have no hope of being so lucky’, a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning. There’s no evidence to suggest that I could care less came directly from Yiddish, but the similarity is suggestive. There are other American expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of apparent sense, such as ‘Tell me about it!’, which usually means ‘Don’t tell me about it, because I know all about it already’. These may come from similar sources.”

Now, I’m not one of those grammar pedants who get upset by the phrase ‘I could care less.’ I like it as slang. And I don’t agree with you that the phrase has lost its meaning. If anything, its impact is heightened by the inversion, in the manner of using ‘bad’ to mean ‘good.’

Slang is one of the major motors of change in a language, and without change a language dies.

Latin, anyone?

watch people when someone is talking to them, they are in a hurry for the talker to finish so they can say what is on their mind to say next such that they are not really listening even.

People suffer from “Gotta Say Something” syndrome

gotta say “Hi” t the people coming out of the elevator

gotta say “Why …” they are buying whatever at the register

and then there are the words

How many know what they mean when they say: soul? or mind? or consciousness or eternity or quantum or science

it’s all habit

and what one has already heard and incorporated into their own chatter

Like Ya Know What I Mean?

Ya hear What I’m Saying?

I believe it just “happened” as many phrases of that sort do; and some writers will sometimes use it as a form of slang or as an idiom, so readers pick it up again.

Don’t worry; just say what you mean when you say it, and leave the others alone with their forms of speech.

Unless you become a teacher!

Chill out, dude! It’s an idiom, man, an idiom. It don’t have to follow square rules.

I mean, rule-wize and grammatically speaking, you used ‘it’s’ instead of ‘its,’ which could cost you props, Pops.

And dog, we do pay attention to what we’re saying. It’s your ears that need attention.

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4813/

it’s a bit off topic, but your question reminded me of it… lemme know what u think.