Talk:1576: I Could Care Less
Another excellent comic by Randall. In case of interest to anyone a different perspective, David Mitchell did a wonder rant on this... "Dear America... | David Mitchell's SoapBox" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw 141.101.98.100 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
The only people who complain about this phrase are pedantic morons who have never heard such things as "head over heels".
Here, I've composed a list of common vernacular/slang idioms which are valid, clear, and diametrically opposed to their original meaning:
- "Head over heels"
- "Break a leg"
- "It's the shit"
- "That's bad"
- "She's phat"
- "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
- "Irregardless" -- Cwallenpoole (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
'I couldn't care less' is the standard formulation in the UK, for one. I always assumed that the US version was originally a variant on this which was later contracted, eg 'I could care less, but not much'.141.101.99.106 07:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Given that xkcd is so pro-science, I don't think the analysis here should endorse the peeve that there's anything wrong with "I could care less" (or use of "literally" as an intensifier), since most actual linguists, experts on how language works, think it's fine. See for example the list of posts dealing with the question here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=21170#more-21170 And of course, the comic itself points out how petty an besides the point this kind of "correction" is. 162.158.92.19 07:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
