Original Usenet thread from alt.ascii-art, started 22 Feb 1999.
could (n't) care less...
alt.ascii-art
· 1 message · 22 Feb 1999
I don't mean to add fuel to the fire... however
I just came across this site while looking up
some other terms... and I thought that it would
be appropriate to post. Maybe it'll answer some
questions...
http://www.m-w.com/mw/textonly/wftw/97oct/101497.htm
-----------
Merriam-Webster's
Word for the Wise
Script for October 14, 1997
On this second day of National Pet Peeve Week, we address a perennial usage
peeve: the idiom could care less.
The original expression, couldn't care less, first turned up in England around
1940, probably as an outgrowth of the earlier I couldn't agree with you more.
Linguists theorize that the phrase was then carried to the U.S. by GIs
returning after World War II. By the late '50s, Americans were using couldn't
care less, and within a few years they had refashioned that phrase into its own
opposite: could care less. And that's the phrase that rankles.
Although the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage called could care less "an
ignorant debasement of the language" and most commentators give it less than
enthusiastic reviews, it has stood its ground. Why has the idiom lasted?
According to one theory, it's because I could care less has an emphatically
sarcastic ring to it when spoken. Since it's difficult to sound sarcastic in
print, the older I couldn't care less continues to be used there. But that's
pure conjecture.
Since the expression is idiomatic, we're not especially troubled by its logical
inconsistency (idioms are notoriously illogical) and we don't see any reason to
condemn its use in speech or to achieve a particular effect. Because our
crusader's zeal isn't called forth by this particular pet peeve, you might say
that we could care more than we do about the matter...which isn't quite the
same as saying we couldn't care less.
--------------------------
Now can we **please** end this issue/argument???
-joan
--
joan stark spu...@juno.com
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