I know we've discussed this before but I just posted a lim on the OEDILF on coul/couldn't care less.
In the UK we NEVER use the "could" variant but just how widespread are the others in the US (a US WE has pointed out that she uses "couldn't" which undermines the limerick premise.)

Non-UK respondents only please.

Question:
How common are the could care less/couldn't care less forms in the US.

Choices:
1. About equal
2. "Could" is more common
3. "Could" is MUCH more common
4. "Couldn't" is more common
5. "Couldn't" is MUCH more common
6. I only ever heard "could"
7. I only ever heard "couldn't"
8. It varies regionally.

 

We have discussed it here every so often, this being one of the threads. You, Bob, posted a nice link to Quinion on the subject. While CJ said in that thread that "sarcasm is as American as baseball and apple pie," I think he's wrong. I don't think it is purposeful at all; I think some people just don't think about what they're saying...or others are just plain stupid!

Kool it, Kalleh !

If that stupid speaker's audience understands him, then he has used our language effectively, irregardless of what you think.

I seen that you was upset, so (just between you and I) here's some ... Kick back. Relax and watch our language evolve.

Don't push the river --- let it flow.

As for me, I'm the personification of ignorance and apathy ---- I Don't Know and I Don't Care.

quote:

If that stupid speaker's audience understands him, then he has used our language effectively, irregardless of what you think.

Why should the audience (or reader) have to do the work? Proper English, appropriate for the recipient, is always best.

Solecisms, like this misquotation under discussion or the word "irregardless", should be avoided even if most people understand them for several reasons:

Firstly they will irritate those whose English if good.

Secondly they may confuse those whose English is poor.

Thirdly they may reinforce the belief that the solecism is correct and thus accelerate its acceptance - to the detriment of the language.

I'm really interested in finding the relative volume of usage of the two variants. Intersting that the results so far posted at the OEDILF are the exact oposite of the ones here. Most respondents there claim that "couldn't" is the commoner term in the US but several have remarked that "could" seems to be ousting it in recent years.

"Hello again," said Wordmatic, fresh from posting her thoughts on the OEDILF on this same thread.

I do understand "I could care less" to be an ironic statement of indifference, and have always understood it as such; as I said over on OEDILF, I have heard the usage in Ohio, Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, and have also heard its opposite used in these areas, and both intended to mean the same thing. I am from what would be called a white-collar background, and so cannot blame my supposed ignorance on my poor upbringing in the ghetto. (In fact, my mother also was a student of English language and lit, and worked as a librarian. Proper grammar was spoken in our home.) Quinion cannot trace an origin, but finds the syntax parallel to certain Yiddish inversions ("I should be so lucky,") in which the speaker says the opposite of what he/she means. The users of the altered phrase 60 years after it has been invented do not need to understand its origins in order to use it correctly, anymore than the drivers of a car need to understand the workings of the internal combustion engine in order to drive.

I do think that the spread of "I could care less" can be attributed to television shows, both sit-coms and westerns, and films. I can almost hear Mae West saying "I could care less, dahling," but I hadn't been born when she said it.

But what the heck, even though I can get roused to fighting words over this (nobody likes to be judged as completely ignorant just because of a harmless idiom carried from childhood), after a few minutes, I actually don't give a rip. It's no skin off my nose. I can take it or leave it.
If I weren't so insecure about this, I would care less.

BTW, Bob--after the battering about the head and shoulders over on OEDILF of anybody who used the "could" form, you'll have a tough time defending yourself in the WSing. I answered #2 over there, but after being involved in this bi-site-ular row for the last day, I answered #8, depends on region, over here. It might even depend upon economic strength of region, since Miss Mimi and Kalleh are both from big cities (isn't MM from NYC?). But note that Frank is from Wichata, and I am from Cincinnati, both midland, mid-sized cities, and we are polar opposites. Is it generational? I don't know. I'm 61 and remember hearing the phrase in childhood.

Oh well-- Macht Nichts (which some spell "mox nix!)

Wordmatic

Can one still become a charter member of the SPUS? (Society for the Prevention of the Use of Solecisms?)

If the SPUS had been firmly established a few centuries ago, speakers of non-standard Latin would have been eliminated, thus nipping in the bud the barbaric dialects that evolved into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and other modern languages. Would the world thus have been a better place to raise our proper-Latin-speaking children?

etiam amen, frater!

AHD considers each version legitimate. ghits run about 2:1 in favor of could care less. I don't like it, but apparently the world-of-language has spoken.

quote:

Kool it, Kalleh !

If that stupid speaker's audience understands him, then he has used our language effectively, irregardless of what you think.

I wasn't upset, Jerry. I honestly think those who say "I could care less" just don't have a clue as to what they are saying. That's okay, I guess. I do understand them (though the phrase is illogical of course), but I don't think most people want to sound stupid or uneducated; with this phrase they surely do. To me it's equivalent to "ain't," and I think we all would agree that we would correct our own kids if they said "ain't." It's different from "irregardless" which actually is in the OED.

For the record, Bob, I agree with your OEDILF friends; I very rarely hear "I could care less," though once in awhile I do. I much more often here "I couldn't care less."

Wordmatic, Miss Mimi lives in Chicago now, though she once lived in NYC.

"Irregardless" and "ain't" are both listed in dictionaries as "non-standard," meaning ungrammatical, incorrect in educated circles.

The sentence, "I could care less." is entirely grammatical, whether you take it literally or figuratively. It's a strange sentence, and uttered in its intended sarcasm, it's a provocative and annoying sentence. However, if it is listed in the American Heritage Dictionary as correct, then it is a cut or two above "ain't" and "irregardless," and let me throw in "nucular," while I'm at it.

I'm sure you'll agree that the meaning of an idiom does not need to follow logically from the words it employs? I'm sure you'll also agree that some figures of speech employ opposite meanings for the purpose of creating an effect.

So why is "could care less" different from the others? Can you cite me an American reference that states that "could care less" is non-standard?

Here's a little snippet on figures of speech employing opposite meanings for effect that I found at:
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=irony :

Meiosis means 'lessening'. It's when you say a small thing and mean a large thing. As when you say "Old Jones knows a bit about economics", meaning "knows a lot about..."; or when someone is said to have "a little place in the country" meaning a palatial manor.

Litotes is saying one thing by negating the opposite. To say someone is "not a bad shot", meaning specifically that they're a good shot. It may also include the "not un..." construction: if you use "not uncommon" to mean "common" (rather than a middle value).

Irony is saying one thing by saying the opposite. "This next theorem is obvious so you can do the proof as your homework", says the lecturer, when it isn't. Or: "That charming and elegant child just vomited on my shoes."

In one point I must emphatically disagree with what Draeis had said. You do not need markers of irony. It can even spoil the effect if you mark it out as irony, like explaining the punch line for those who didn't get it. The best irony is unmarked. And as such, it is often misunderstood. If you're a good ironist you just have to get used to this. Alas.

quote:

If you're a good ironist you just have to get used to this. Alas.

I agree. Irony is also used a lot more in the UK than the US. We often find ourselves having to point out that we were being ironic when speaking to many of our American cousins, which fact would be understood immediately by our compatriots. With the rise of the Internet this different perspective has caused several flame wars in groups and forums. I find that I have to use a smiley such as in an attempt to show I am being ironic, which completely destroys any subtlety, and even then is not always successful.

Some Google stats

worldwide

could care less - 4.28 million ghits
couldn't care less - 2.51 million ghits

uk only

could care less 62,800 ghits
couldn't care less 132,000 ghits

Given that many of those sites are talking about which of the phrases is correct* and that they almost universally agree that it's more common in speech than in writing it seems that in the US it's almost 2 to 1 in favour of the aberrant form so over at the OEDILF I've decided to stick by my original limerick. Sorry if this upsets anyone who feels I'm maligning the speech patterns of Americans, I'm not, really I'm not. But it does seem from research that "could" is overall the more common US form.

Thanks everyone for opinions and comments.


(* and the fact that so many people are talking about it proves that its use is widespread enough to merit comment.)

I am surprised that the UK-only figures give only a rough 2:1 ratio in favour of "couldn't care less". So far as I know, the "could care ..." variant is pretty well unknown over here.

Most of the "could care" in the UK seem to be sites condemning the use of "could care".

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
I agree. Irony is also used a lot more in the UK than the US. We often find ourselves having to point out that we were being ironic when speaking to many of our American cousins...this different perspective has caused several flame wars in groups and forums. I find that I have to use a smiley such as

ahHA! I recognize your smiley from that Jumbo thread, then. So glad you tipped me off!

quote:

However, if it is listed in the American Heritage Dictionary as correct, then it is a cut or two above "ain't" and "irregardless," and let me throw in "nucular," while I'm at it.

Wordmatic, when I check Onelook, I only see "could care less" in the Slang Dictionary and in Quinion. There is, however, a comment in the "couldn't care less" entry that says: since 1960 "could" was occasionally [emphasis mine] substituted, and "today both versions are used with approximately equal frequency, despite their being antonyms." [emphasis mine]

I'd disagree that that they are used "approximately equally," at least in the area where I live. However, it is interesting that the AHD points out that they are antonyms, which to me is just as damning as saying a word (like "ain't" or "irregardless") is non-standard. At any rate, while "could care less" is cited in those 2 Onelook dictionaries, "ain't" is listed in 11 and "irregardless" is listed in 16, so I don't think I'd agree that "could care less" is a "cut or two above 'irregardless' and 'ain't'."

I suppose I could understand people saying "I could care less" if they really meant to "employ an opposite meaning for effect." We never really know what is in anothers' mind when he or she speaks. My gut feeling, then, is that the speaker who says "could care less" really thinks it means the same as "couldn't care less" and just doesn't understand its meaning.

As for Ghits...I don't know how much faith I have in those. There are tons of misspelled words that come up on Google, too, yet one doesn't regularly see them used that way in print. I think we've talked about Ghits here before as not being all that instructive about anything. I know that, as of today, OEDILF has 801,000 Ghits, and yet CJ tells me that much of that is redundancy (same cites, etc.) and garbage.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Wordmatic,

My use in the Jumbo thread wasn't irony, it was meiosis, another rhetorical device you mentioned earlier. It's also commonly used by the British, along with litotes.

Smear a dab of GoogleCreme on your face once or twice daily and in a few weeks you'll be rid of those ugly ghits.

quote:

..when I check Onelook, I only see "could care less" in the Slang Dictionary and in Quinion.

Kalleh, I was actually referring to the AHD citation given by Wordnerd on Saturday at:
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/078.html

It is actually the American Heritage Book of English Usage.

I disagree that an antonym is by definition ungrammatical. It may or may not be inappropriate, which is what we are debating here.

My I interject that I generally just say "I don't care?" I find both "I couldn't care less" and "I could care less" to be haughty and off-putting. Certain persons who live in my house, when they are feeling extra nasty, are much more likely to use the constructions involving a rodent's posterior or an airborne sexual encounter! However, being a delicate thing myself, I never use such language.

So, I stand by my opinion that "could care less" is a cut above "ain't" and "irregardless," no matter how many dictionaries they are listed in --all as "nonstandard," I'm sure. I didn't say it is my indifference-phrase-of-choice or that it is a wonderful expression to use, only that I do believe it is legitimate in its ironic sense.

I am surprised at the degree of vehemence this discussion has raised, both here and at OEDILF!

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
My use in the Jumbo thread wasn't irony, it was meiosis, another rhetorical device you mentioned earlier. It's also commonly used by the British, along with litotes.

And, of course, many of these figures of speech sound like terrible diseases of the respiratory system, though my very favorite figure of speech is the zeugma, which sounds like something you shouldn't mention in polite company.

quote:

I disagree that an antonym is by definition ungrammatical.

I didn't use the word "ungrammatical" and didn't intend it.

quote:

So, I stand by my opinion that "could care less" is a cut above "ain't" and "irregardless,"

And I stand by mine.

quote:

I am surprised at the degree of vehemence this discussion has raised, both here and at OEDILF!

I haven't looked at the OEDILF forum, but I will say that I don't feel "vehement" when making my comments. I just have an opinion that:
1) "Could care less" is usually not understood by the people using it; that is, they are not purposely trying to "employ an opposite meaning for effect." As I said, that's merely my opinion, and it couldn't easily be proved either way.
2) My opinion, once again, is that the use of "could care less" (as discussed in #1 above) is less desirable (for lack of a better word) than "ain't" and especially "irregardless." (I have come to accept irregardless. I believe it was zmj who had found a very legitimate meaning of "ir" to support the meaning of irregardless. "Ain't" on the other hand is different. My experience is that many use it merely to be "cute" sometimes. They know what they are doing. Again...merely my opinion.
3) Ghits don't tell us much.

That's as far as my vehemence goes. I could, I suppose, be convinced, as zmj convinced me of irregardless. However, I don't use irregardless and don't plan to. The same goes for ain't.

As far as "could care less," well I could care less if anyone ever uses it. And, I mean that literally.

I care. I do care. I don't care. I care not. I'll care. I shall care. I shan't care. I should care. I shouldn't care. I will care. I won't care. I would care. I wouldn't care. I may care. I mayn't care. I might care. I mightn't care. I can care. I can't care. I could care. I couldn't care. I could care less. I could care no less. I could care more. I could care no more. I couldn't care less. I couldn't care more. I'm not going to care. I ain't gonna care no more no more. Chiastically and zeugmatically thine.

I have been trying...honest...not to be such a prescriptivist.

I guess I lost in this thread, though, huh?

Point well taken, z.

quote:

my very favorite figure of speech is the zeugma, which sounds like something you shouldn't mention in polite company.

To combine Jerry's and Wordmatic's posts, ghits sound like they are the nasty symptoms of zeugma!

This is interesting. "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" are one pair of sentences where the presence or absence of negation doesn't change the meaning.

Here are some others, courtesy of Language Log...

Eddie knows squat about phrenology.
Eddie doesn't know squat about phrenology.

That'll teach you not to tease the alligators.
That'll teach you to tease the alligators.

I wonder whether we can't find some time to shoot pool this evening.
I wonder whether we can find some time to shoot pool this evening.

You shouldn't play with the alligators, I don't think.
You shouldn't play with the alligators, I think.

Welcome, Gooofy...with 3 o's. Where are you from?

Nice point about the presence or absence of negation. I love the Language Log.

And here's another rather famous one.

She has the morals of an alley cat.
She doesn't have the morals of an alley cat.

And one I heard attributed to Winston Churchill in a Commons exchange.

He said, "The Honourable Member doesn't have the manners of a pig"

When asked to withdraw his remark by the Speaker, WC responded, "I apologise and withdraw my remark. The Honourable Member does have the manners of a pig"

That's funny, Richard!

But I'm not sure that it is the same as the examples I gave. The sentences I'm talking about mean the same whether or not you have negation. Your sentence can be interpreted differently. But maybe I'm quibbling.

I'm from Toronto.

quote:

But maybe I'm quibbling.

You'll find that we are a bunch of quibblers.

quote:

I'm from Toronto

It's nice to have another Canadian aboard!

quote:

Your sentence can be interpreted differently. But maybe I'm quibbling.

I think we can all agree that the Honourable Member's manners were less than or equal to a pig's.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Richard English:
And one I heard attributed to Winston Churchill in a Commons exchange.

He said, "The Honourable Member doesn't have the manners of a pig"
-----------


As we have remarked before, how sad it is that we transfer human faults to animals. By their own standards I am sure that pigs are well mannered, certainly intelligent. Do you all remember this ditty, which proves my point?

'Twas an evening in October, I'll confess I wasn't sober,
I was carting home a load with manly pride,
When my feet began to stutter and I fell into the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Then I lay there in the gutter and my heart was all a-flutter,
Till a lady, passing by, did chance to say:
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses,"
Then the pig got up and slowly walked away.