I commend you, good sir, and assert that you are no grammar nazi. A nazi is crude, unreasonable and thoughtless. You are none of these things. You have merely demanded a minimum amount of effort from the people around you, an infinitesimal moment spent in quiet reflection that could perhaps result in a magical epiphany resembling, "Wait a minute, if I could care less, that means I am caring more than the minimum! That is not what I am trying to express! Alack, I must duly backspace."
Edit: And to whoever downvoted this man, I officially call you a knave.
It is important to write correctly. If you allow "I could care less" to congeal on top of "I couldn't care less" in one big idiomatic mess, you more or less lose the ability to express "I could care less".
A more extreme example that also bothers me to no end is "begs the question." Its now quite impossible to use this phrase to call out the logic error to which it originally referred as it is now used interchangeably with "raises the question". When I want to call the error, I have to do a mini exposition on circular reasoning. I feel cheated out of this fine piece of language.
There's a difference between nazism and simply insisting on correctness. I also commend.
That's because the correct meaning of "begging the question" is completely non-intuitive. I challenge anyone to give me a good explanation of how the meaning of the term is in any way related to the meaning of the English words "begging the question", other than "well, that's what the Latin term translates to."
I'm bothered by people who say "could care less", but I'm bothered even more by people who insist on "correcting" use of the phrase "begging the question". This begs the question, am I a hypocrite?
I was confused about that too, but then I discovered that there are some alternate definitions for the word 'beg' which are (from dictionary.reference.com):
"to fail or refuse to come to grips with; avoid;"
"to take for granted without basis or justification"
I'm not sure whether these definitions of 'beg' or the "begging the question" phrase came first. I'm also not sure which definition of 'beg' came first, and why on Earth the completely separate meanings got merged into one word.
I challenge anyone to give me a good explanation of how the meaning of the term is in any way related to the meaning of the English words "begging the question", other than "well, that's what the Latin term translates to."
Heh, you should stay far from the field of law in that case.
I'm also not advocating running around correcting everyone who wants to use "begs the question" in this fashion. Personally, I'll use "raises the question" but accept your use of begs. Which is my point. "Begs the question" is gone now. It means something else entirely. The right time for insisting on correctness in this case was probably more than 100 years ago.
From the site: "This is a common error of usage", 'the erroneous "modern" usage'
This tells me that the author completely misunderstands how language works. It assumes that there is a 'correct' way of using a word, and that a word is something more than an arbitrary collection of sounds.
No, you're not a hypocrite, but you are being inconsistent. That's not necessarily a bad thing, unless it leads to hypocrisy. There's a fine line between defending a point of view and defending it in such a way that you really can't reasonably defend the opposite point of view anymore.
I disagree with almost every single response in this entire thread, so I don’t know where to begin. The use here is idiomatic, as many people have pointed out. The intonation contour of the phrase is completely different than the non-idiomatic usage. I think that those people who say that there is no intonation difference are simply not consciously sensitive enough to intonation to realize that there’s a difference. Another example might illustrate intonation differences more clearly, even though the nature of the difference in the example is different than that in could care less. There is a difference between the intonation of black bird meaning a bird that is black, and black bird meaning a specific type of bird known as a black bird. The former has a relatively flat intonation contour, while the latter has definite stress on the initial word. So, there you go: we have the exact same word mapping to two different referents, but people can somehow distinguish which referent is meant based solely on the intonation contour. (Let’s not get into a discussion of the definition of ‘word’, but it suffices to say that black bird is two orthographic words in both cases, but one lexical item in the latter case and two in the former.) So, the fact that there’s a difference in the intonation of could care less means that listeners can distinguish between the literal and idiomatic uses, and the intended meaning is perfectly clear. As someone else points out, Steven Pinker has happened to analyze this exact phrase in The Language Instinct, and he concludes it comes from a sarcastic interpretation of the original literal meaning. For those of you sitting in your armchairs who don’t agree with his analysis, all I can say is that he’s a highly respected linguist who knows what he’s talking about.
We still say room and board even though board no longer means food. Should we stop using that collocation because it includes an obsolete word? We say a little bird told me even when a little bird did not, in fact, literally tell you something. Furthermore, birds can’t tell anyone anything, because birds can’t talk, so the phrase logically doesn’t make any sense either. But we still use it, because it doesn’t need to be ‘logically’ consistent to communicate meaning. So it doesn’t matter whether could care less ‘logically’ makes sense based on its literal meaning — its literal meaning is not the meaning people ascribe to it when used idiomatically. Even more importantly, though, the surface form of language is not necessarily ‘logical’, simply because it’s so complex under the surface that it’s unintuitive what’s going on. It doesn’t make any everyday sense that subatomic particles exhibit quantum tunneling and entanglement and all sorts of other strange phenomena, because the underlying physics is so ridiculously complicated that it has to be studied in minute detail before a real picture emerges.
Another similarly uninformed objection, along the same lines of reasoning, that I often hear people make is that we ‘should’ eliminate redundancy from language. They say that’s why double negatives and words like irregardless are ‘bad’. But Spanish has double negatives and they’re perfectly grammatical, so what’s wrong with having them? If you use a word like irregardless, everyone understands what you mean perfectly, so what’s wrong with using it? Furthermore, as hackers you should all realize that redundancy is good. Having a multiply redundant array of disks makes sure there’s not a single point of failure, and having multiply redundant backups means that you don’t go down like Ma.gnolia. Speech is a signal, and signals experience loss, attenuation, interference, etc. A word like irregardless — with redundant affixes in it — may very well be far more communicative in noisy environments. Even if the end of the word is cut off, people can still reconstruct or extrapolate what was said. And remember, the point of a word in spoken speech is to communicate. How do you know usage hasn’t shifted to that form, as a preference over regardless, for exactly that reason? The answer is that you really don’t.
There are processes at work in language change that you don’t have any control over by being a nazi or a pedant. The language changes, whether you like where it goes or not. And it’s twelve steps ahead of you, because it’s changing to satisfy or maximize requirements and utility functions that none of us can even begin to understand fully.
Second of all, this isn’t a syntactic issue in the first place, so it’s misleading to call yourself a grammar nazi. The sentence ‘I could care less’ is perfectly syntactically valid. This is purely an issue with the lexicon. And if you’re going to be a lexicon nazi, there are a few things you should know about the lexicon. First, it’s one of the most rich, fluid, and dynamic aspects of the language, and changes the fastest. Trying to keep it ‘pure’ or stop it from changing is not possible. Second, lexical differences are present across a multitude of axes: geographic, socioeconomic, gender, etc. There is no ‘correct’ lexicon, therefore there is nothing for you to ‘correct’ about the way someone else is speaking.
Third, I really don’t like how so many people on HN have a general attitude of anti-authoritarian superiority, but then you get these sort of rambling hypocritical threads where people pounce on perfectly legitimate uses of language. People pounce like that in other places, but it doesn’t bother me so much because it’s not coupled with the anti-authoritarian bent. The kind of prescriptive rules you are discussing are essentially a marker for whether someone has been educated or not. Those who do not have access to education, for whatever reasons, do not learn the prescriptive rules that allow you to write in a manner that sounds educated. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way hillbillies or inner city black kids talk — it is demonstrable that their language follows the same kind of rules as Standard American English, and are just as logical and consistent. It’s ironic because, in certain respects, those dialects are more logical and consistent than SAE. So by making these sort of glib, ad hominen, red herring remarks whenever anyone makes a grammatical ‘error’, you’re really just reinforcing the entire system. Note that I’m not making any value judgment or stance on the existence of a prestige dialect, or on anti-authoritarianism itself; it’s just that I find the combination of the two hypocritical. This entire thread gives me the same feeling I get when you hear Victorian era drawing room discussions about how the savages in Darkest Africa and Oceania and the Orientals have to shown the light about the superiority of ‘correct’ Western culture. In hindsight, those opinions are so black and white as to be laughable, because there is so much nuance involved just in the question of what the words correct or superior even mean.
Hmm, I didn’t realize how much I wrote until I just posted this. If I had a blog I guess this should be a blog post.
Sigh. All true. We are mostly coders. We want to believe there is an authoritative language that can be parsed, lexically analyzed, tokenized, and yields consistent meaning. It throws a peculiar kind of error in our brains when words or phrases change meanings on us. Its especially troubling when they come to mean the opposite of what was meant previously.
Language is uncomfortably emergent. I'll add "Could care less" to my big book of things to explain to foreigners about my native tongue. Idioms that sound like they could be real phrases are the hardest...
Yes, that’s a very insightful remark! I was going to mention that human language and programming languages are fundamentally different things, but I already wrote too much.
Interestingly, though, in the 1950s Chomsky’s first attempts at characterizing human language took just such a route, and involved simple transformational grammars and other concepts that did not work for human language, but turned out to be useful for the analysis of programming languages. As a result, we now learn about things like the Chomsky Hierarchy in undergraduate models of computation classes.
Thanks for your long post, it was very informative and you've convinced me about "could care less".
I think HN's apparently strange mix of anti-authoritarianism with prescriptive attitudes to language becomes easier to understand if you consider that the anti-authoritarianism is not an independent value, existing for its own sake. It goes hand in glove with a meritocratic value. HN contributors aim for and admire quality over authority, and I think that's a better explanation for the language pedantry we sometimes demonstrate.
Of course I'm describing the ideal, which is not always achieved, and HN's idea of "quality" in the use of language is subjective.
The fact that language changes is often, as you do, presented as a reason and justification for a change under discussion. However, that is plainly false reasoning and we need solid arguments as to why we should accept certain changes.
I resist change where I feel it makes a language less clear. There's nothing authoritarian or conservative about that stance: it's about plain usability. When someone says 'I could care less', where I expect 'I couldn't care less', then I get confused. I take extra time parsing and interpreting the sentence, for no reason whatsoever. There's already a perfectly applicable string of words to express what someone wants to express, which includes the 'not'. Leaving out the 'not' is not about 'creating a new idiom'. It's laziness or ignorance and both cannot be excused by 'meh, language changes'. Neither is a solid argument to change a language.
I appreciate your arguments in favor of 'irregardless', 'room and board' and the blackbird and found them enlightning, but I fail to see how these apply to 'I could care less' or 'begging the question'. Those two can be explained just fine by laziness and ignorance on the part of the user.
I’m not presenting it as a reason or justification, but as a fact. You, personally, are unable to engineer the course of the language, and your resistance to a change does not stop the change from occurring. The language does not need your acceptance for change to occur. It may seem to you like it’s changing for no reason whatsoever, but that’s only because — sitting there in your armchair — you’re unable to come up with a good reason off the top of your head.
Saying that it takes you longer to parse the sentence is anecdotal nonsense, because there’s no way for you to measure that without doing a controlled psycholinguistics experiment.
What I said was fairly clear, but to be explicit, room and board is relevant to could care less because it shows that forms can fossilize. It does not matter that board doesn’t mean ‘food’ anymore, just as it no longer matters that could care less means the opposite of what it would literally. You don’t mention my example of a little bird told me, but it is relevant because it shows that idioms do not have to be interpreted as the literal sum of their parts (and, in fact, by definition, aren’t).
You’re missing the point of just about everything I originally said, and you really don’t address any of the arguments I brought up, other than to say you fail to understand them.
It may seem to you like it’s changing for no reason whatsoever, but that’s only because — sitting there in your armchair — you’re unable to come up with a good reason off the top of your head.
That's basically "you cannot prove there isn't a good reason". That's the case by definition. The burden for justifying the change lies with those supporting the change.
Saying that it takes you longer to parse the sentence is anecdotal nonsense
There is nothing anecdotal about my experience. If I have to blink and think twice about what someone is saying, then he is using nonstandard idiom.
it shows that forms can fossilize
That stuff can fossilize, doesn't mean we should let it fossilize. You're rehearsing the fallacy I was pointing out: 'could care less' is not fossilized and there is no bloody reason to allow it to fossilize. Moreover, you're comparing something that used to be standard idiom and has fossilized in that state with something that is changing and may fossilize in that new, changed state. The argument for the first rests entirely it's history and age, both of which the second lacks.
The burden for justifying the change lies with those supporting the change.
You’re the one categorically claiming that the way people talk is somehow ‘wrong’. If you want to make that claim, you need to support it. Without going into highly technical details, I explained some ways why the usage could make sense. Your response was simply to say, as if declaring it somehow makes it true, that there is no reason for the usage.
There is nothing anecdotal about my experience. If I have to blink and think twice about what someone is saying, then he is using nonstandard idiom.
By definition your experience is anecdotal. I doubt you have to think twice when someone says it, but we’d have to subject you to an experiment to be sure. But simply put, there are so many cognitive biases that may potentially be at work that you really can’t reliably judge yourself whether it takes you longer to process. Sentence processing happens on the order of tens of milliseconds.
That stuff can fossilize, doesn't mean we should let it fossilize.
You’re assuming that you have some control over whether the use develops in the language. I’m saying that’s a flawed assumption and that you don’t.
If you’re so sure the usage is wrong, it may be interesting to note how many hits there are for each phrase in Google’s index:
2,220,000 for "could care less"
1,410,000 for "couldn't care less"
I readily admit that this, too, is anecdotal evidence. But it’s quite telling, no?
The presence of the apostrophe is an orthographic convention and has nothing to do with language in the least. There’s no apostrophe in it’s when people pronounce it.
Hmm, I'm intrigued by your assertion that orthography has nothing to do with language, but indeed you're right that this is an issue which relates to spoken language, so I'll ask a different question:
How would you describe the use of "isn't" where "am not" is generally considered grammatical?
For example "I isn't a liar" rather than "I am not a liar".
Again, you’re missing the point. I can’t prescriptively judge whether something is grammatical or not, nor can anyone else. Grammaticality isn’t something which someone decides — a grammatical sentence is by definition a sentence which speakers of the language produce and understand. It is grammatical if people use it. If there is a particular dialect of English where they use isn’t as the first person singular form of the copula, then it is grammatical.
It would not be grammatical in the standard American English dialect, which I think is what you’re getting at. But you have to be careful with your terms here, because in the technical sense ‘grammatical’ means an acceptable sentence of the language, whereas I have a feeling your understanding of ‘grammatical’ means ‘how we were taught to write in school to communicate to other people that we have been educated’. My entire point is that there’s a difference.
You would probably call the sentence
He been had that job.
completely ungrammatical. In Black Vernacular English, however, it’s perfectly acceptable. What’s more, depending on the pronunciation of been, this sentence can communicate a tense that doesn’t exist in standard American English. In SAE it can only be communicated by adjunct material like ‘for a long time’. Ostensibly, this is more efficient.
Part of our difficulty to understand each other may be that "wrong" is often used to imply some sort of value judgment. I should stress I'm not using it in that way, just as a statement of fact.
I would strongly assert that X years ago, when "I couldn't care less" was the only popularly used version, saying "I could care less" was both lazy and ignorant: lazy because it's dropping a syllable for the ease of the speaker despite making it more difficult for the listener; ignorant because the speaker doesn't realise they're doing it.
Whether it's lazy and ignorant now is a harder question to answer. I'm not familiar with North American usage of the phrase.
I guess my comments may come across as slightly antagonistic, but I don’t mean them that way at all. I’m just very excited about the topic of language in general.
I should tell you that I have a masters degree in linguistics, so I’m not pulling any of this out of thin air. Most of the arguments I’ve made are more or less generally understood among the linguistic community. Most of the objections and issues you are raising are the kind of questions that are dealt with in undergraduate linguistics courses.
I don’t have time to continue discussing this today unfortunately, but if you’re really interested in this stuff, you should reader The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker. He does a far better job at systematically explaining these issues than I do. Something like The Foundations of Language by Jackendoff is much more technical but also a very good introduction.
Oh no, don't worry. Quick-fire written discussions are hard, so I don't hold any antagonism against you. No offence taken, and I hope you understand I too was writing out of interest rather than a desire to be argumentative.
I was wrong in my assumptions about the current usage of the phrase, as you've already pointed out, so I concede the argument.
I'm very interested in the use of language too, which is why I enjoyed the discussion, though I've never formally studied it. Thank you for the recommendations.
This debate is an instance of a strange phenomenon which I don't yet know yet understand how to resolve.
If someone wrote a serious piece on the internet, containing in all seriousness, the phrase "I isn't very happy about dat" then it's certainly possible to write an interesting essay on culture, the use of colloquialism, evolution of language etc., but I also think it's equally valid for me to summarize my position by saying "Your grammar is incorrect, and you've spelled 'that' wrongly. Please don't do it again in a serious article.".
In much the same way, if someone wrote "integration is reverse of differentiation" I could explain at length why this is not true but often it's more effective to accept it as an approximately true statement and move on to discussing more important things.
There is an excellent page in the introduction of Jackendoff’s book that I think is a great illustration of just how complex language is, to be trying to talk about it in an ad hoc manner.
No, that’s not really what I’m saying at all. Human language is not simply a series of control paths that branch the way you’ve described. That’s exactly how people tried to program computers to understand language 50 years ago, and what resulted is toy things like Eliza.
What I said is that the two uses are entirely different words, because they’re pronounced differently. You’re right that it’s bizarre — that’s why no one knows how language works yet.
Taking the stance that people speak English ‘wrong’ is not a simple interpretation, because it leads to the following question: please define what ‘wrong’ means.
I agree that the study of linguistic phenomena is a deep and interesting subject which humanity has only scraped the surface of.
However, I'm more inclined to have a pratically based discussion than a philosophically based one, where we risk infinite regress by asking each other to define the words that we use.
Can you give me another example where the utterance "I could X" means "It's not possible for me to X"? If not then I argue that the change in usage adds unnecessary complexity to the language that makes it harder to understand. It doesn't matter how this phenomenon is to be understood in terms of sophisticated linguistic theories; at a basic and practical level it impedes understanding.
Simply put, we may or may not be going through a period of transition in the language; it will be impossible to tell until much later. However I do know that during the transition those speakers who are used to the traditional form "I couldn't care less" have to work harder to understand when "I could care less" is used to express the same meaning.
It’s funny, because you’re not inclined to have a practical discussion rather than a philosophical one — my entire point is that by declaring that people are speaking the language ‘wrong’, you are yourself introducing the entire philosophical question of what ‘wrong’ means. You can’t say people are speaking the language wrong unless you’re ready to define what ‘wrong’ means. And I think you’ve realized that there’s no good way to answer that question.
Can you give me another example of where we use the word board in English to mean food? If not, I could ask you never use the phrase room and board again. But that would be silly. It does not matter whether could care less is a one-off instance — it is an idiom and that is the entire point. It does not matter whether you argue that the phrase adds unnecessary complexity to the language: it is already in the language despite your objections, because people use it. There’s nothing you can do to change that. Language is what people say; if they say it, it’s language.
It does not impede understanding because the idiomatic usage is pronounced differently. There is no confusion and no ambiguity. What you are saying simply isn’t the case.
Finally, it’s not the case that we ‘may or may not’ be going through a period of transition in the language. Language change is always happening.
Finally, it’s not the case that we ‘may or may not’ be going through a period of transition in the language. Language change is always happening.
I mean with respect to this specific observation. If in five years time nobody ever says "I could care less" then I don't believe people's current use of "I could care less" constitutes a transition in the language, I believe it constitutes incorrectness.
My point is that transition in language is only observable after the fact. If I start calling apples "coconuts", and it doesn't catch on, then that's just mean speaking incorrectly. If it does catch on then it's the start of a transition. But which of the two it is is impossible to say until much later.
Can you give me another example of where we use the word board in English to mean food?
This is not a sufficient counterexample. The two cases are too different to be compared.
1. Notice that in the "care less" example, it is the phrase that has changed, whilst the surrounding language has remained the same, whilst in the "board" example the phrase has remained the same, whilst the surrounding language has changed.
2. "Room and board" is not in popular usage whilst "I could care less" is (as far as I understand). Thus the potential for confusion is greater.
3. "Room and board" has a long established use. The use of "could care less" is much more recent.
You might have a point, but you'll have to find a closer example to convince me.
I could ask you never use the phrase room and board again.
If you found the phrase confused you, I'd comply. I'm not asking an authority to change the general usage of "I could care less". I'm suggesting that it's worth noticing that a change has occurred, that the change conflicts with literal interpretation, and that the people I communicate with could, for clarity, use the original version.
Notice that in the "care less" example, it is the phrase that has changed, whilst the surrounding language has remained the same, whilst in the "board" example the phrase has remained the same, whilst the surrounding language has changed.
I used room and board for the sake of argument because I felt it was easy to understand. It may be true that the meaning of could care less has changed, but Pinker’s analysis is that it has not — it always meant the opposite of its literal interpretation.
You really can’t imagine some kid intoning in a sickly sarcastic voice to their parents, ‘Oh, I could SO care less!’? You must realize the kind of massive influence youth subcultures have on the language, and from there it’s really not a big leap to image how a usage could enter the language that means the opposite of its literal interpretation.
"Room and board" is not in popular usage whilst "I could care less" is (as far as I understand). Thus the potential for confusion is greater.
Completely disagree. A quick look at the number of hits in Google’s index shows that they’re both in common use:
2,220,000 for "could care less”
1,960,000 for "room and board"
Anecdotal, but telling. If you really wanted me to, I could do a corpus search in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, but I expect the results would be about the same.
"Room and board" has a long established use. The use of "could care less" is much more recent.
I checked the OED and could care less seems to have been in use since the 1960s. Therefore, both phrases have been in use since well before I was born. So, for me, and most people who aren’t really old, they’re both completely established.
If you found the phrase confused you, I'd comply.
The crux, though, is that it would still be in the language. Just because you stop producing it doesn’t mean it’s been wiped from existence. If someone came up to you and used it, you couldn’t help but understand what they just said to you. More importantly, though, there’s no reason why you should stop using perfectly legitimate language just because someone else says it doesn’t make sense, but when it’s obvious that it does make sense, because everyone understands you when you say it.
it’s really not a big leap to image how a usage could enter the language that means the opposite of its literal interpretation.
Indeed, "wicked", "ill", "sick" all spring to mind.
I wonder what it is that I object to in "I could care less" that I don't in "wicked". Perhaps the length of the component that must be understood on it's own. Imagine a multi-line paragraph which meant something different to its literal interpretation, but only if those exact words were used, and the meaning did not transfer if you replaced some of the grammatical substructure. I'd find that very confusing, and this is an extreme version of the phrase currently under discussion.
A quick look at the number of hits in Google’s index shows that they’re both in common use
I stand corrected.
I checked the OED and could care less seems to have been in use since the 1960s.
You're right, and this weakens a great deal of my argument. I presumed it was a very recent phenomenon.
The crux, though, is that it would still be in the language.
It's not in use in British English, and if British people start talking like that to me I will point out to them that what they are saying is confusing. What effect that will have remains to be seen.
Actually it makes my argument redundant, since I was working with the assumption that "I could care less" was a form of slang which was growing in popular usage.
So thank you for the information and I withdraw my case! When the phrase starts becoming used in Britain we'll take up the discussion again!
It does not impede understanding because the idiomatic usage is pronounced differently. There is no confusion and no ambiguity.
I've never heard it pronounced because we don't use that phrase in Britain. It's always "I couldn't care less". It does lead to confusion when it's seen written.
Could you describe the difference in pronunciation of "I could care less" used under the two different meanings?
I'm from the US, and I don't think there is a difference in pronunciation. In fact, its gotten to the point where when someone says "I could care less" I generally ask them to clarify unless the meaning is made obvious by context.
That being said, there is usually sufficient context (in my experience, admittetly anecdotal) to figure out the meaning.
It’s funny, because you’re not inclined to have a practical discussion rather than a philosophical one — my entire point is that by declaring that people are speaking the language ‘wrong’, you are yourself introducing the entire philosophical question of what ‘wrong’ means.
By declaring anything I'm introducing the entire philosophical question of what any word I use means.
We generally omit details of relative unimportance. In this case I suppose you think that the definition of "wrong" is very important to the discussion, whilst I think that the people I generally want to communicate with have a shared understanding of that concept.
We don't really have enough agreement over basic principles to continue the discussion.
He may be unable to engineer the course of the language, but he can influence the language used by those who want to communicate with him. Perhaps the original post can be understood as an attempt to influence the language used on Hacker News. If we end up speaking differently from the majority then so be it as long as we find our usage beneficial.
Or in HN terms: A function that adds 2 to a given number, but is called 'subtractTwo()', compiles without problems.
The name and the meaning don't have to match.
Begs the question though has a simple, obvious meaning, "it demands [begs] that the question be asked". The only reason that "begs the question" is applied as a translation to petition principii is that beg used to be used in a different way, language has moved on.
If you mean assuming the premise, can't you just say that? Or if you like lording your immense brain over us inferior beings you can use petitio principii and we'll all bow down to your prowess and learnedness and continue to just call it assumption (or presumption, or where appropriate tautology; take your pick).
That said "I could care less" grates with me but I couldn't care less as I know what was intended by the context.
This has always been my understanding. Why would I state that I could care less about something which I am trying to express that I don't care much about at all?
There's the theory that it implies you could care less, but that would require effort. I don't buy it. It's pretty easy not to care about something, in fact, I think it takes no effort at all. It's not like I'm straining myself by not caring about Joe Smith's new job in northern Minnesota. In fact, I couldn't care less.
"My girlfriend left me for being so goddamn pedantic all the time, and I could care less!"
I wonder if there's an opportunity to be had in creating a dating site for linguistic pedants, purists, and grammar nazis. I'm thinking a required literacy test to join, and auto-banning the account of anyone who commits more than some threshold limit of grammatical errors.
I think the key metric is that useful grammatical suggestions are ones that make the communication more clear. At the end of the day, clarity should be the focus. It bothers me when people make silly grammatical errors, but many of them end up in the final text because our minds auto-correct for them and as such they rarely pose much of a problem in terms of actual clarity.
I agree with you. The reason such errors worry me, even if clarity isn't an issue, is that the next generation reads these incorrect texts and assumes that everything they read was written correctly. As a consequence these kids misunderstand the grammar of their language. Lack of formal grammar training doesn't help. Because language is an important tool for thinking, degraded language skills lead to degraded thinking.
The example that always gets me foaming at the mouth is the persistent confusion of "are" and "our" in online forums, just because they sound similar in an American accent.
I up voted the both of you as this is a huge irk or mine as well.
Say what you mean, don't just rehash phrases you've heard before! This says a lot about how much thought we put into what we're saying and hearing, as I've seen and heard this on all types of media, from TV, movies, radio, books...
I'll bite: I couldn't care less about anyones irk's - You get the point of what he was trying to say .... so why point out the difference? - I think its a smug ass hole thing to do.
I upvoted you because it is a smug, asinine thing to do, but I disagree with your implication that he thus should not have done it. However, because this is One Of Those Issues, I have split my reply into two conceptual sections:
Objective:
It seems that the world is largely organized into two classes of people: those who care about precision of speech beyond the simple need for making someone else understand your point, and those who believe that as long as everyone is on the same page, then for God's sake, it bears no further discussion. "I could care less" apologists are in the latter group, clearly, but it is important for both groups to exist and speak up. Of course, this means that while I disagree that he shouldn't have mentioned it, I agree that you should have criticised him for mentioning it.
Subjective:
My disgust with "I could care less" goes beyond mere imprecision of speech. There are people in this HN thread claiming that when someone says "I could care less," they mean "I could care less, but it would require effort." I think that this is definitely not what most people think they are saying when they say "I could care less." I think most people are trying to express, "I couldn't care less even if I tried," but are failing to express that because they are simply regurgitating things they have already heard. This is a pernicious habit indicative of a deeper lack of thoughtfulness and creativity in our society, and it drives me completely crazy.
I agree with you in broad lines but would like to raise one nuance that I find essential to the ongoing debate.
Many now popular constructs in contemporary language have come forth from – at their time – seemingly illogical mutations. By banning all seemingly illogical new ways of saying things, or in other words: only letting new constructs that make more sense pass unopposed, we effectively kill a language. A language that allows for only the most logical and most effective of ways to express ideas has no room for creativity. (I'm referring to creativity with the language, as in playing with the language, e.g. stand up comedy or creative writing; it is perfectly possible to be creative using a dead language, or to write beautiful – syntactically correct – code.)
Considering how evolution seems to work, such a 'pure' language is inevitably where we'll end up if we kill off all seemingly illogical new constructs.
To bring my point back to where I started: There are not two groups, one that cares about precision of speech and one that doesn't. I understand you deliberately simplified your explanation, there are never 'two groups', but I think there's another, more interesting, way to view this difference beyond just stating that there obviously must be a continuum between two extremes. I pose that we all have a certain tolerance level for how incorrect a construct may be with regard to how we value its addition to the language (is it merely a lame bastardization, like "I could care less", or does it have actual merit, like "to upvote") for us to accept or reject that construct.
If we shoot down "I could care less" only because it's unsound – or if you prefer, incorrect or imprecise – we may be smug, but we are definitely being reckless and are doing the language a big disfavor. If, instead, we point at this wart in someone's copy because its (1) unsound and (2) lacks any merit over the correct version, I don't think that's smug, let alone asinine, at all.
I don't point this out to people for the reason stated. It does irk me, but I keep my peace, even when it's my own brother.
That being said, this is a forum that is detailed and critical by nature, I don't feel it's smug to voice a subjective opinion on the matter.
Still, you're right, it can be(and most likely is in most situations), a very rude and smug thing to do, but it all depends on the person as well. Do they receive critical comments well? Will they be enlightened because of it?
"Richard Feynman, [Murray] Gell-Mann's chief competitor for the title of the World's Smartest Man but a stranger to pretension, once encountered Gell-Mann in the hall outside their offices at Caltech and asked him where he had been on a recent trip; 'Moon-TRAY-ALGH!' Gell-Mann responded in a French accent so thick that he sounded as if he were strangling. Feynman - who, like Gell-Mann, was born in New York City - had no idea what he was talking about. 'Don't you think,' he asked Gell-Mann, when at length he had ascertained that Gell-Mann was saying 'Montreal,' 'that the purpose of language is communication?'"
A fine anecdote - Gell-Mann was of course communicating not only that he had been to Montreal, but also that it was a French name, that he new the [approximate] pronunciation and that he anticipated Feynman to be equal learne\d.
I would consider "dammit", "damn it" and "damnit" all to be acceptable. As soon as you leave "damn it" you're in slang territory anyway, so personal variations are acceptable.
(I will also accept "dagnammit", "dognarnit" and "magnabbit".)
"(exclamation) Oldcootism used during great consternation or surprise. Used by 1890’s prospectors, cantankerous old farmers, and young people playing old people on TV in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s."
The period inside the quotation marks isn't clear-cut. Standard American usage is punctuation inside the quotations and is a hold-over from practical considerations of typesetting. Standard British usage is punctuation inside only if part of the quotation itself, outside otherwise. The British style also sees some use in scientific and technical contexts even in the USA, due to being regarded as more logical.
run4yourlives being a programmer as well as, apparently, Canadian, is perfectly entitled to use the more logical British style without regret or hesitation.
Strunk and White say that punctuation goes inside the quotation marks regardless of the context (except for question marks and explanation marks), so if you are listing quotes, then the comma goes on the inside of each quote. On a side note...The serial comma (the last one in a list of items) is most certainly needed (imho?).
3. Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Use one comma before to indicate the beginning of the pause and one at the end to indicate the end of the pause.
For the record, I generally lament the "flattening" of language. However, I still find myself pulled by the current. Examples: I no longer care to avoid splitting infinitives; I say "could have went" now and then.
Ultimately, we might suppose one need only concern oneself with two goals: (1) communicating what one intends to communicate, and (2) making a satisfactory impression upon others on account of one's speech/writing.
Use "common" language to achieve the former; use "correct" language to achieve both.
Careful writers teach readers to read carefully. Careless writers teach readers to read carelessly. If your writing is full of confusing constructions which, on examination, prove to be sloppy prose, then your readers will start to error-correct everything they read to match their expectations of what you're trying to say. If you say anything interesting, clever, or unexpected, they're likely to skim right over it and miss your meaning.
The splitting of infinitives admonition was created, artificially, by a prescriptivist who had studied too much Latin and thought that languages ought to reflect their heritage. It wasn't a prevalent conception until the 1800s; Shakespeare even split infinitives (once.)
The same article seems to suggest that it has both come into and gone out of fashion over the last few centuries. I feel consoled by the examples given where avoiding the split would introduce potentially different meanings than the one originally intended.
I'm guessing that it's a historical accident that "to" is demed part of the infinitive in English and "zu" isn't in German. Wart, meinst du die getrennte Verben?
[Pedant] Mann braucht kein "do" in "We do split" [/Pedant]
> [Pedant] Mann braucht kein "do" in "We do split" [/Pedant]
I know. I just want to emphasize.
> So sich erinerren ≡ zu sich erinneren?
Not in that case. (Here we'd have "sich zu erinnern"). An example for splitting the "zu" from a verb. Strange, it looks like we do not do in German that much (or at all). I must have mixed it up with some other construction.
I've always thought that could be a clever turn of phrase, like, "Well, I could care less, but that would actually require effort." Like, utter and complete apathy, even unto apathy for the apathy.
"I could care less" is sarcasm that has fossilized into idiom. Notice how it has a different intonation than you would expect from a simple declarative statement.
I don't buy that theory. I'm fairly sensitive to intonation, and have never heard it intoned in the manner you suggest.
I think it's more likely that people parrot the sounds without thinking of the words and/or the meaning. Compare to "for all intensive purposes", for example.
"I couldn't care less" is the literal way to state the sentiment, but it sounds weak and petulant compared to the idiom. There are multiple intonations that could potentially achieve the sarcastic effect, but the common one is just a flat dismissive delivery.
I agree with your observation of that common mechanism for mangling English, though. The mis-quote you mention is particularly embarrassing to behold.
Somehow I hadn't noticed 'intensive purposes', so thanks. Recently I have found the use of 'practically' as a replacement for 'pretty much' irksome. We have plenty of words for that and no more to indicate 'for practical purposes'.
As others have pointed out: language is meant to be understood. It would be enough to always take the meaning from a speaker, except if we do that chronically, we begin to lose words. Which will make communication more difficult when you need those specialized meanings.
Indeed--parts of speech up to entire subjects or objects may be omitted where they're understood from context. Here, it's obvious that the full, time-worn phrase is "I could try to care less, but I might strain something."
I lived in England until I was 7, and I grew up saying "couldn't care less". I'm American now, and it's always bugged me that the vast majority of Americans can't get that phrase right.
The people have spoken, and the downvotes have changed my mind. We should instead sanction comments like the great-grandparent. Thanks to everyone who voted!
I could care less about this topic. [but the mental energy required to change my emotional response to your flame would be more than the subject is worth]
This is basic strategy really - being a dick to people will almost never bring you closer to a goal you've set, which means there's no point in doing it. The success rate of "calling people stupid until they agree with me" is quite low...
I think it depends on your intent. Being a dick is a clever strategy if you want attention. Being a dick by calling someone very popular (or visible) stupid gets you attention. Instead of people ignoring the dick, they pile on and then criticize him -- which is giving him attention. Then, people who find some reason to agree with him pile on and defend him. Bamb, the dick has now usurped some of the targets authority.
(P.S. I am not defending this strategy. I find it annoying -- but entertaining in a checkout line gossip rag type way.)
I'm completely sure that Kanye has ADD. That was in no way to his advantage, and if he thought it through the way non-ADD people do, he wouldn't have done it. It was a strictly bad play.
I don't know who this is for, except it's not me, but, after reading it in with no person in mind, i read it again, like it was adressed to me, and i thought "He's right"
Me thinks we call this irony: the first two posts in this chain asked whom this was pointed at, and suggest Zed Shaw. You make a good point that it might be he who wrote it. ;)
Zed has maintained many open source projects for more than 6 months. Also, if you've met Zed in person, you'll find that he's one of the most considerate and cool people ever.
The guy who introduced me to Python originally had that kinda dickish attitude, and for some dumb reason I assumed the whole Python developer community was like that. It really biased me against using the language for quite some time, which is a shame because now I've come to really like it.
The moral of the story: some people have Asperger's, and you shouldn't let their (pathologically?) contemptuous attitudes affect you.
I've seen people around me trying to unnecessarily add irrelevant technical jargon to the simplest of matters which they want to tell me. In 99% of the cases, it turns out to be something I have a really good laugh on.
It is worth nothing that just because something is an active community project doesn't mean that it's the right way to do things. And also, just because the right way to do things is not implemented in your favorite langauge doesn't mean that the wrong way is not wrong.
I can always tell the smartest guy in the room types, my solution? I talk about my visual basic projects and what a great language it is. It's a great game to play.
You know many people actually try to intentionally not become something like the intended audience of that article. People around us can be really dumb, you know like in a high school (or like in my case even college). Now the key here becomes not to let yourself be pampered by such pseudo eliteness. I always try to be with people who have a greater intellect than me, just so i can beat them. but when i cant help it, i make it a point to keep reminding myself this is not the crowd i can judge myself with
Couldn't damnit, could not. This irks me to no end.
</grammar nazi>