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Idiomatic _American_ English, perhaps, but even otherwise, it's still a grammatical error. Just one that's become ubiquitous to the point that speakers in one p
by cholantesh 11y ago
Idiomatic _American_ English, perhaps, but even otherwise, it's still a grammatical error. Just one that's become ubiquitous to the point that speakers in one place don't care or don't notice.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Idiomatic _American_ English, perhaps, but even otherwise, it's still a grammatical error. Its not a grammatical error (grammatically, its basically identical to the "could not" form, since "could" and "could not" are usable in the exact same grammatical positions.) There is a semantic mismatch between the individual terms taken in isolation and the idiomatic meaning of the phrase, but this is not uncommon in idiomatic phrases (one can view it as something like "[x] could (in theory, though it is unlikely in practice) care less.")
- cbd1984 11y agoIf it's ubiquitous, how is it an error? Where do you think the grammar of a living language comes from?