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Nomadder
Joined: 16 May 2008
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 Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:34 am Post subject: |
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Often, I find those that say "I could care less", also say things like "oh don't lets start".
It's "I couldn't care less" even in the states. |
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Stevie_B
Joined: 14 May 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| PeteJB wrote: |
| oskinny1 wrote: |
| The Brits have their little idiosyncrasies, as well. Public school is paid for and Private school is free? |
Other way round, mate. |
Who is that savoury bird in your avatar? |
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wawawawonder
Joined: 30 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:16 am Post subject: |
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| Nomadder wrote: |
| Often, I find those that say "I could care less", also say things like "oh don't lets start". |
That actually could make sense if you broke it down- Oh, don't let us start...
It's when people say "Let's don't...", that we really start having to worry, right? |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:17 am Post subject: |
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I regard "I could care less" as one of those standardized sarcastic utterances, such as:
You're a fine one to talk.
You're a fat lot of help.
Big deal.
Fat chance.
Touch you! |
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blackjack
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: anyang
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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The only time I have heard it said is if like is put in front.
like I give a shit.
or
like I could care less |
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Hanson
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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This is one of my pet peeves.
"I could care less" is nonsensical. Period.
It would be like saying "I could agree more" instead of "I couldn't agree more" - just plain wrong and grinds my ears. |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 11:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Irregardless, supposably most people could care less, for all intensive purposes. |
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cheeseface
Joined: 13 Jan 2008
Location: Ssyangnyeon Shi
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| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 12:07 am Post subject: |
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| oskinny1 wrote: |
| The Brits have their little idiosyncrasies, as well. Public school is paid for and Private school is free? |
Actually public schools cost shot loads of money, places like Eton and Harrow are public schools. You are thinking of comprehensive schools, they are free.
Public and private schools both cost money in the UK.
Last edited by cheeseface on Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:10 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 12:55 am Post subject: Re: I could care less: language question |
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| WoBW wrote: |
Now, I don't want to turn this into a flame war about British versus US English. Both are valid, both have made valuable contributions to the English language. I'm British, my I find myself often using US English and spelling in Korea because that's what they're most familiar with here. And that's just find.
However, one expression in US English that bugs me. "I could give a shit." - is supposed to mean I really don't care at all, right. Well the logic escapes me here. saying "I could give a shit." literally means I at least care enough to give a shit. Or "I could care less" literally means "I do care some, because... well "I COULD care LESS." Doesn't make sense.
In Brit. English we say "I couldn't care less" or "I couldn't give a shit." Surely that makes more sense.
I types this message in a hurry between classes, so apologies if coherence isn't a strong point. |
If you have ever read The Language Instinct by Cognitive Psychologist Steven Pinker, "I could care less" is an example of what he calls recoding. You're right that the original expression is "I couldn't care less", but in recoding, some listeners mis-hear the expression and then recode it in a (arguably incorrect) manner.
Pinker points out that this is a common phenomenon in language change over time. For example, English people first learned about oranges from the Spanish. The Spanish word for orange is naranja, and in fact 400 to 500 years ago the English word for "orange" was "norange". But over time the word changed because listeners unfamiliar with the word heard the phrase "a norange" and phonologically recoded it to "an orange". Gradually over time, the latter became the accepted usage. |
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Blockhead confidence
Joined: 02 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:51 pm Post subject: Re: I could care less: language question |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Pinker points out that this is a common phenomenon in language change over time. For example, English people first learned about oranges from the Spanish. The Spanish word for orange is naranja, and in fact 400 to 500 years ago the English word for "orange" was "norange". But over time the word changed because listeners unfamiliar with the word heard the phrase "a norange" and phonologically recoded it to "an orange". Gradually over time, the latter became the accepted usage. |
Apparently, it's just a possibility.
| Online Etymology Dictionay wrote: |
| orange c.1300, from O.Fr. orenge (12c.), from M.L. pomum de orenge, from It. arancia, originally narancia (Venetian naranza), alt. of Arabic naranj, from Pers. narang, from Skt. naranga-s "orange tree," of uncertain origin. Loss of initial n- probably due to confusion with definite article (e.g. une narange, una narancia), but perhaps infl. by Fr. or "gold.".... |
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toiletgod2000
Joined: 18 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| I think "I could give a shit" makes more sense. Either you're so uninterested that you would rather go and take a shit, or you're willing to trade your shit for whatever's just been said. |
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tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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Toilet God might be right, but I interpret "I could give a shit" as a paraphrase of the expression "worth a damn."
That expression, in turn, is derived from the expression "not worth a tinker's damn."
Tinkers were stereotyped as foul-mouthed.
Since they cussed so much, the rest of the population grew jaded to their cuss words.
Consequently, a cuss word spoken by a tinker was not worth much. |
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Cheonmunka
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| ... a paraphrase of the expression, "worth a damn." |
Yeah, but we say "not worth a damn.' We never say something is 'worth a damn.' We must use a negative and say, 'couldn't care less.' It will never, ever work without the negative.
Case over, stop using it incorrectly. I get irritated, the same way I get irritated with, 'there' instead of 'their,' 'your' instead of 'you're.' Drives me bonkers it does. Poor grammar disseminated across the internet, dumbing us all down. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:02 am Post subject: |
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| PeteJB wrote: |
| oskinny1 wrote: |
| The Brits have their little idiosyncrasies, as well. Public school is paid for and Private school is free? |
Other way round, mate. |
No. A public school in Britain is a private school. A state school is free. The term has been around for centuries, before there was such a thing as schooling for the mainstream population.
From wiki:
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| In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the term "public school" refers to fee-charging independent secondary schools. The earliest known reference to a "public school" dates from 1364, when the Bishop of Winchester wrote concerning "the public school" at Kingston in his diocese. [1] The term public then distinguished between education in a school generally provided by a church and open to public applicants, and schools where admission was restricted to children from a particular aristocratic class, such as City of London Freemen's School. |
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