[net.nlang] I could care less

lew (11/22/82)

I think that the expression "I could care less", is an ironic version
of "I couldn't care less". When I was in high school ( graduated '66 )
we habitually employed verbal irony to the point of absurdity.
Example: "You WON'T need a raincoat. It's NOT raining."

I think that "I could care less" might have eclipsed the original
because of the relative subtlety required to sort out the logical meaning.

Incidentally, how many remember the fuzzy-wump in the Raggedy Anne
stories, who always said the opposite of what he meant?

Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew

mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (06/19/85)

[Is there really a line-eater?]

<>

> >   colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
> >   "Fat chance" is ironic, like "I could care less."
> From: mm@vaxine.UUCP (Mark Mudgett)
> Actually, "I could care less" is derived from the saying, "I know little and
> could care less."  This refers to a subject about which I am uninformed,
> and about which I care even less than I know.  The saying has been confused
> with "I couldn't care less," which means that I couldn't care less than I
> do about the subject; implying that I care not at all.

That seems like a very plausible story for ONE of the times it entered
the language (the written language in particular).  But I hope MM isn't
falling into the trap that 'where it comes from' = 'what it REALLY is' or
'how it actually functions'.  That doesn't work, even with completely
established, well-attested etymologies.  Speakers re-analyse all the time,
and it wouldn't be astonishing for 98% of all speakers to understand some
locution in a way that entirely defies the etymology.

I'm with the Colonel on this: I think the current popularity comes from a
fairly recent development (~~25 yrs), and indeed I think I remember watching
this change happen.  It could fit MM's description, that it "has been
confused with" the negative version, but 'confused' in the special way of
being substituted for it by many speakers, via irony or sarcasm.  Take it in
three stages:

     1.  Circa 1960.  The form in the negative was dominant, and it was
         said with straight intonation.  It seems that everybody who has
         posted on this matter agrees that the negative form pretty literally
         fits the situation: I couldn't care less because my caring is already
         at the lowest possible level, I don't care at all.

     2.  Like just about anything, the expression is available for sarcasm
         or irony, if said with a special intonation (and turned negative).
         I can't do the intonation in writing, but I'm sure you all know it.
         The best written approximation is to prepend some phrase like "Of
         course..." or "I suppose..", e.g. "As though I really love Lima
         beans, huh?" which in speech could easily just be "I really love
         Lima beans" with the right intonation.
           So, during the sixties and into the seventies, people became
         fond of saying "I could care less" with sarcastic intonation, to
         indicate lack-of-concern.

     3.  For some people, the affirmative form became so much the normal
         way of expressing lack-of-concern that they dropped the sarcastic
         intonation, and relied on the words alone (and probably the situation)
         to convey their attitude.  If we agree that the negative form had
         literal application, then the affirmative form is being used
         in a way that departs from its literal or "compositional"
         meaning.  That's more or less the definition of an idiom, so
         can say that for many speakers it has started to become an idiom
         (but see counterargument below).
            Meanwhile,  new speakers were growing up hearing the affirmative
         form, without ironic intonation, used to express lack-of-interest.
         for them, it might really become an unanalysable idiom.

I don't think that that last speculative step has really happened yet.  If
it had really gone all the way through, we could expect to find speakers
for whom "I couldn't care less" was the denial of "I could care less";
hence, the denial of lack-of-interest; hence, the expression of interest.
And that doesn't seem to have happened.

Now, I don't have any documentation for this version of the story, and
am just filling in gaps based on my memory of how it seemed to change.
Do others remember it the same way?  I bet MM DOES have documentation for
early instance, and that's always welcome.  It's nice to find out about
attestations of early appearances of some word or expression -- but that
doesn't necessarily tell us much about how it's stored and used by people
who picked it up from their contemporaries.




            -- Mitch Marks
               @ UChicago (linguistics)
               ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar