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I've had this conversation a good few times and I quite like "could care less" - to me it implies more choice on the part of the speaker. I COULD care less. I h

I've had this conversation a good few times and I quite like "could care less" - to me it implies more choice on the part of the speaker. I COULD care less. I have that capacity. I actively choose not to. Although this is definitely not how people usually use it.

bchociej 10y ago
I've always seen it as a pithy kind of humor, which it seems most other people either miss or disagree with. "I could care less! (Yet here we are discussing it to death.)" or "They could care less... (less than we do / less than all this discussion suggests they might care)" ^ I think that's essentially how most people use it, mechanically, without thinking about it as much. When I say it, I usually either mean it that way, or something along the lines of "I could care less! (And I wish I did!)"
rsync 10y ago
"I've had this conversation a good few times and I quite like "could care less" - to me it implies more choice on the part of the speaker. I COULD care less. I have that capacity. I actively choose not to." That is the dumbest thing I have ever read.
- dang 10y ago
  > That is the dumbest thing I have ever read Please don't post things like this to HN. (Broken windows aren't allowed, even on the bikeshed.)
gph 10y ago
Is there an example where that would make sense? Not trying to be a jerk, just can't think of one. Whenever I've heard the phrase it's basically meant "Doesn't care at all", a.k.a couldn't care less. The entire spirit of the phrase is to denote how little someone cares about something. So if you say they could care less, that implies they care a tiny amount about it and CHOOSE to care that much. I don't see how that could ever replace the original phrase and still make sense.
mikeash 10y ago
There are ways to justify it, like this, or the way I thought for a while which is that it's sarcastic. But I'm pretty sure it's just a corrupted idiom. People say "could care less" and mean "couldn't care less" but they don't connect the sounds with the meaning anymore. It's turned into an eggcorn.

bchociej 10y ago

I've always seen it as a pithy kind of humor, which it seems most other people either miss or disagree with. "I could care less! (Yet here we are discussing it to death.)" or "They could care less... (less than we do / less than all this discussion suggests they might care)" ^ I think that's essentially how most people use it, mechanically, without thinking about it as much. When I say it, I usually either mean it that way, or something along the lines of "I could care less! (And I wish I did!)"

rsync 10y ago

"I've had this conversation a good few times and I quite like "could care less" - to me it implies more choice on the part of the speaker. I COULD care less. I have that capacity. I actively choose not to." That is the dumbest thing I have ever read.

dang 10y ago
> That is the dumbest thing I have ever read Please don't post things like this to HN. (Broken windows aren't allowed, even on the bikeshed.)

gph 10y ago

Is there an example where that would make sense? Not trying to be a jerk, just can't think of one. Whenever I've heard the phrase it's basically meant "Doesn't care at all", a.k.a couldn't care less. The entire spirit of the phrase is to denote how little someone cares about something. So if you say they could care less, that implies they care a tiny amount about it and CHOOSE to care that much. I don't see how that could ever replace the original phrase and still make sense.

mikeash 10y ago

There are ways to justify it, like this, or the way I thought for a while which is that it's sarcastic. But I'm pretty sure it's just a corrupted idiom. People say "could care less" and mean "couldn't care less" but they don't connect the sounds with the meaning anymore. It's turned into an eggcorn.