You may possibly be right. But I think a lot of misunderstandings could be avoided if we eschewed sarcastic elisions and just said what we meant.
And anyway, fiddlesticks. Most people using this juvenile phrase are not eliding sarcatically, they're just being ignorant.
But, I am sure you yourself were being sarcastically elisive. I would expect no less. :-)
John
On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 07:55:25 -0700, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Apr 19, 2005, at 4:29 AM, John Forbes wrote:
As we are on the subject of inept use of language, I am surprised at you parrotting that American schoolboy howler: "I could care less".
What you mean is that you "couldn't care less".
Thus is language debased, even by those who would seek to criticise others.
"I could care less" means 'I could not care less' in idiomatic American English: it's a sarcastic elision of "As if I could care less". The debate about its correctness rages on. Here's a long discussion:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001256.html
But you obviously caught what was meant, which was the purpose of uttering it.
Godfrey .... trees? or forest? ...
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