![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyxkcd today
The "I could/couldn't care less" part of Weird Al Yankovic's Word Crimes was my favorite part of that video.
At the same time, it got me to thinking...
If a person is talking about a topic, then they are inherently caring about the topic in some form or fashion.
So, despite the on-the-surface logical argument that when someone says, "I could care less," they really mean, "I couldn't care less," I've come to think that they really do literally mean "I could care less" without realizing it, because the moment they actually DO care less, they stop talking about the irritant and move on with their lives so that I don't have to keep listening to them drone on and on and on about the topic that they otherwise claim that they could care less about.
(I'm just as guilty of the droning thing.)
Funny, though, how "I really couldn't give two shits about that," gets said overwhelmingly with couldn't (versus could) as the pivotal word automatically. It's as though everyone just KNOWS that they really couldn't give two shits about something.
The "I could/couldn't care less" part of Weird Al Yankovic's Word Crimes was my favorite part of that video.
At the same time, it got me to thinking...
If a person is talking about a topic, then they are inherently caring about the topic in some form or fashion.
So, despite the on-the-surface logical argument that when someone says, "I could care less," they really mean, "I couldn't care less," I've come to think that they really do literally mean "I could care less" without realizing it, because the moment they actually DO care less, they stop talking about the irritant and move on with their lives so that I don't have to keep listening to them drone on and on and on about the topic that they otherwise claim that they could care less about.
(I'm just as guilty of the droning thing.)
Funny, though, how "I really couldn't give two shits about that," gets said overwhelmingly with couldn't (versus could) as the pivotal word automatically. It's as though everyone just KNOWS that they really couldn't give two shits about something.
