News You Can Bruise for 2008 December 5

Permalink [Comments] (5) Fri Dec 05 2008 07:45:

I've always liked the phrase "could care less" even though it's one of those maddening phrases that means the same as its opposite, "couldn't care less". I like the self-referential connotations that make it mean the same as its opposite: "I'm too apathetic about this to even put in the effort to not care about it!"
Comments:

Posted by Evan at Fri Dec 05 2008 07:53

whoa.

i literally _just_ looked up 'careless' in the OED for a research project. synchronicity?

i'll cut n paste the earliest usage:

a1000 Cædmon's Exod. 151 (Gr.) Wulfas sungon, carleasan deor. c1205 LAY. 19658 enne weoren heo care-læse of Costantines cunne.

1. Free from care, anxiety, or apprehension. (Since c 1650 arch., poetic, or nonce-wd.)

[...skipping down to a curious entry in the 4th definition...]

4. c. (esp. in mod. use) Done, caused, or said heedlessly, thoughtlessly, negligently. Esp. in phr. careless talk, applied during the war of 1939-45 to talk which, if overheard, might assist the enemy.

Posted by kirkjerk at Fri Dec 05 2008 09:33

I always assume the "could care less" variant has an implicit "(in theory, anyway)" after it.

Posted by drewp at Sun Dec 07 2008 01:53

I gave up on 'could care less', but I do wish people would stop saying 'least common denominator' when they're trying to talk about something smaller than the other supposed denominators. The LCD is at least as big as all your other denominators, easily much much bigger.

Posted by kirkjerk at Wed Dec 10 2008 10:02

Drewp-- interesting point!I hadn't thought about "LCD" in a long time!I think when people use it in speech, functionally they're thinking of Greatest Common Factor... the most significant component that two things have in common.

I guess the "forgiving" interpretation is that people are looking for the smallest concept that can let two unrelated things be compared and/or work together...

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