I Couldn’t Care Less….Could You?
Contrary to popular usage and belief, the statement is “I couldn’t care less,” not “I could care less.”
The reason is simple. If one could not care less, then one is as completely un- or dis-interested in something as it is possible to be. It would not be possible for the person to be any less concerned than he is.
If one could care less, then one does have at least some shred of interest in something.
If this seems like splitting semantic hairs, well, I suppose it might be. The problem is one of precision and exactness in communication.
If I ask you, “Do you think our troops should be in Iraq?” and you reply “I could care less!” then I must assume that you have some strong feelings about the matter. If, however, you reply “I couldn’t care less!” then I would assume that the issue never enters your thoughts.
There are those who maintain that “I could care less” actually implies even less interest than “I couldn’t…,” as it could be interpreted to mean “I could care less than I do, but I don’t choose to bother.” This, to me, is mere obfuscation of the issue. Are we going to say what we mean, or not?
2 Comments
Editormum,
Would you be so kind as to explain when it is appropriate to use an apostrophe regarding the word, ‘it’?
I see people using an apostrophe when they are using ‘it’ with a possession, e.g, I said it’s priorities needed reconsidering.
Now, I wouldn’t have used an apostrophe in that instance — which is correct?
Thank you, oh great Guru.
Inflection complicates matters. What bothers you also bothers me. At the same time, I can understand how the error probably evolved.
Inflection in speech always strongly suggests the speaker’s intended meaning.
If you say, “*I* could care less,” or you don’t stress any of the sentence’s words at all, the listener’s reflex is to assume that you *couldn’t* care less.
If someone were to say, “I *could* care *less*,” or — even better — “I *could* care less,” the listener would most likely process the statement’s meaning accurately and literally.
One more thing:
The true meaning of, “I could care less,” is so unexpected. This is probably the biggest explanation for why people utter it when they mean something else and why listeners, nevertheless, understand it to be what the speaker intended it to mean.
In fact, the listener’s processing of the statement, “I could care less,” is actually quite accurate, as the intended meaning — however incompatible with the actual statement — is nearly always, “I couldn’t care less.”