A few days ago
MikeyG

How did this phrase come to lose it’s form and meaning?

Why is it that the majority of people say ‘I could care less’ when what they mean is ‘I couldn’t care less’ do people really pay that little attention to what they are saying, that they will avow that they feel the exact opposite of the way they truly do. Anyone have theories on how, when, and why this happened?

Top 10 Answers
A few days ago
born&raised: maui_gurl

Favorite Answer

hmmm…i never really thought i was saying the phrase wrong. so, i just had to do research. i found this:

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.

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A few days ago
Wordsmythe
Here’s an interesting excerpt that speculates on the origin:

“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?

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A few days ago
genntri
I think people really do pay very little attention to what they are saying

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?

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A few days ago
Anonymous
I’m guilty of using “I could care less” when I mean the opposite – I think it’s because I’m not really thinking about it. I think that it didn’t just happen one day, but it’s been going on for a long time, but only a few people would mess it up. Then the people who heard it from the few people who messed it up caught on to it…like it’s kind of spreading. Or people could just misinterpret somebody saying “I couldn’t care less,” and not understanding what was said, repeat it incorrectly. I don’t know, but I’m watching myself now to make sure I don’t do that anymore!!!
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A few days ago
LK
It’s the lazy tongues of many speakers…they’d prefer to drop the contraction for ‘not’ than say it. Plus, they believe that saying “I could care less” means the same thing, though it means the opposite.

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!

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A few days ago
Anonymous
Mikey – baby!

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.

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A few days ago
aretwo_d2
or how bout the one “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”…. when it should be obvious that anyone who has a piece of cake can eat it… the saying should go “you can’t eat your cake and have it too”. cause once you’ve eaten it, its gone. goodbye no more cake.
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A few days ago
katjam234
Laziness…pure laziness. A lot of people up North say “So didn’t I.” and “So don’t we” when waht they mean is “So did I” and “So do we”
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A few days ago
Anonymous
hey mike,

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

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

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A few days ago
Beauty&Brains
Great question I always wonder that!!
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