> but that doesn’t make it logical. Natural languages aren't logical. Pretending or wishing otherwise is a fool's errand, and I guarantee there are many words

> but that doesn’t make it logical. Natural languages aren't logical. Pretending or wishing otherwise is a fool's errand, and I guarantee there are many words and phrases you use all the time without thinking that are entirely illogical, but still make sense. > words or phrases taking on the opposite meaning of their literal definition The word you're looking for is "auto-antonym". Very common. > “I could care less” ... Perhaps it’s debatable whether that one has achieved acceptance or not. It has; the variance between could/couldn't is mainly regional. And it's an example of how phrases or idioms have independent meaning outside of the individual words.[1] Another good example is something like the [North American] "How are you?" - it's a greeting, not (usually) a literal question about how someone is. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phraseme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phraseme