Sigh.
The problem is not emasculation.
There is no shortage of masculinity around.
Congress is no longer an all-male legislative body.
Fretting about emasculation is a standing insult to women.
I’m very tired of casual insults to women.
Famous last word
Comments
13 responses to “Famous last word”
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Not to mention, it should be Trump couldn’t care less. Does nobody know how words work anymore? (Our charming hostess not included; she is very literate.)
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Yeah, that grinds my gears too though I’m more concerned that it’s a failure of logic. I though Schama was smarter than that.
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Schama has been a big disappointment – I’ll never forget his weird rant against fat people in Landscape and Memory.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the one and only Care-O-Meter:
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Funny, but now I’m triggered. One of my pet peeves is the overcorrection that says you can’t use ‘less’ with count nouns. I mean something like “less items” feels wrong to me but there’s no historical or logical basis for that feeling.
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This is an interesting case in the evolution of verbal language.
I remember when people said, “I care so little that I couldn’t care less.” This became shortened to “I couldn’t care less.”
Steven Pinker seems to think the younger generation is being “ironic” when it uses “I could care less,” but this is highly unlikely. I think it has to do with rhythm.
Try saying “I couldn’t care less” with a sassy, sarcastic tone. You trip over that “couldn’t.” Then try “I could care less.”
EYE
could
CARE
LESS !
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Mike, emphasising ‘not’ makes for a sassier sound: I could not care less.
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I’ve said ‘I couldn’t care less’ in a sassy sarcastic tone all my life. And I don’t see it as a younger generation evolution of language, because I’ve been hearing ‘I could care less’ my whole life. People just don’t give much thought to what they say when they are saying a common cliche; too much work. But ‘i could care less’ diminishes the extent of your dismissal, because if you ‘couldn’t’ care less, then you are at the bottom of your caring. If you ‘could’ care less, this is not the lowest your interest could go.
Another one that annoys is ‘I’ll laugh all the way to the bank’, which used to be ‘I’ll cry all the way to the bank’. It’s the same sort of thing, where one meaning is turned around to make the opposite.
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I’m usually a tedious nitpicker about things like that, despite knowing via linguist friends that it’s pointless, language gonna language, but for some reason I don’t mind “I could care less.” I just think of it as an idiom.
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Well, then, those of us who have that as one of our personal nitpicks appreciate you for putting up with us! You are a most gracious hostess.
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I am shocked that Schama, SIR Simon Schama, used “could care less” which is an Americanism. in the UK it’s “couldn’t care less.” Schama was born in London, went to Cambridge, has made programmes for the BBC and has been knighted. He has spent far too long in the USA. I suppose he’s started pronouncing “herbs” as “erbs” and writing his dates backwards. He dishonours our nation, or as he would spell it, “dishonors”.
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Well of course in the US too it’s “couldn’t care less”; the other version is not instead of but in addition to. Nobody with any sense uses it in formal writing or speaking – it’s just a bit of dialect, that’s all.
It occurs to me that the two have a different rhythm, because they put the emphasis in a different place. I COULDN’T care less versus I could care LESS.
I’m pretty sure “I could care less” is not the dominant way to say it.
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I’m pretty sure “I could care less” is not the dominant way to say it.
Maybe not in Seattle, but here in the Midwest I never hear much of anything else.
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Ah well I wouldn’t know, I don’t talk to people – but I was thinking of written as well as spoken.
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