Could care less or couldn't care less?

This is something that has always bugged me--the phrases "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less". The latter is the only one that makes sense, right? So why do I hear both, and the former much more often?

 

The english language has been under attack for decades by immigrants and the lower classes who are either unwilling to fully convert, or who have chosen to bastardize the kings english through sheer laziness

Let's return to a time before babel when everyone spoke the same language

Hotwater

 

All I know is that I couldn't care less.

:tongue:

 

At least you're grammatically proper in not caring.

 

OH MY GOD!! that's always been a peeve of mine. i hate that, it's so aggravating. there's a few other phrases like that i've heard butchered, i just can't think of them now.

 

Really???? Let me aks you where you came up with that?

 

opcorn:

 

I'm glad to hear someone understands...

This reminds me, at my last job I worked with this woman that had a heart of gold but the WORST grammar I have ever heard in my life. A normal conversation would include her asking something along the lines of "Was you OK with that?".

It was depressing.

 

Liberal use of the double-negative greatly irritates my mathematical sensibilities.

 

i dunt undursant dis thred. y'all b talkin sum mad ebonicz!

 

If someone actually COULD care less, then 'I could care less' would apply.

Rather, if someone literally COULD NOT care less, then yes, the latter would apply.

So, put in that context, both would be grammatically correct.

 

I could care less-- with a little effort.

 

Right. The problem is that I often hear people using "I could care less" when they are trying to make the point that they don't care at all.

 

i always say "i could care less"
but nobody from where i'm from talks correctly! haha

 

It's pretty trival. I tend to use both, and I tend to sometimes use the former without thinking much about it. Next time I will simply say I don't give a fuck and keep it simple. There are much more important things people should be worrying about than something as silly as how grammatically correct somebody is. We are on the verge of WWIII, yet most people don't seem to be too concerned about that. They are more concerned about what other people are saying or doing.

 

Grammar is the only thing I care about.

 

OK then. I will be keeping a close eye on your threads and will be sure to point out when you make a grammatical faux pas.

 

Yes, in Finnegans Wake, James Joyce says the end of the world will come from, ''the abnihilisation of the etym," thus at the destruction of all meaning.

 

I was joking, Matt.

 

Well I'm a little drunk but...

If you say 'I could care less' then your saying that part of you actually cares.. This is a stupid comment that amounts to nothing...

If you say 'I couldn't care less' then your saying you don't care about it at all. This comment has a point.. yeah

I'm I going somewhere with this Lace and Feet?