Quote:
Originally Posted by Luckbox Inc
Do you have a formal proof based in logic and semantics you're prepared to present to the rest of us or is this just your supposition?
I don't know about a "formal proof based in logic and semantics", so how about I just use what we're discussing - words.
A person can choose to not care at all about something. When I say I "couldn't care less" about something, there is only one way that could be true - if I don't care at all. Or to say it another way, if I'm capable of not caring about something, then there is only one condition that makes the statement "I couldn't care less" true - when I don't care at all.
But if I could care less about something, that is simply another way of saying I do care some amount. Therefore, when someone says "I could care less" to express the idea that they don't care, they're using the incorrect expression. If they care at some level, they "could care less". If they don't care, they quite clearly "couldn't care less".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Didace
I can't believe I am going to say this, but I'm on team Luckbox. It's become idiomatic in American* English.
But that's not team Luckbox. Team Luckbox is making some strange argument that words mean something different. You are correct that it has become idiomatic - native English speakers should understand that when someone says "I could care less" they mean they don't care, even though that doesn't make any sense. It's interesting in how that has come to be; I think it's a bit like "irregardless", in that the incorrect usage has happened because people don't realize the error, and over time the erroneous term has come to be used more and more commonly. Although with "I could care less", at least one could argue it is simpler to say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Didace
Similar to "literally" now can be used instead of "figuratively".
Well, it often is, and is usually understood that way, but I think it gets a lot more pushback than "I could care less" or "irregardless", maybe because rather than being simply an incorrect usage, it's more of an evolution or shift. People seem to be always looking for new ways to add emphasis to things, and this has become the case with "literal". Sometimes that's the way the usage works out, like the difference between "it's freezing outside" when it's cold, and "it's literally freezing outside" when things are actually freezing. Its correct use often ends up emphasizing something more, so now it's come to be used by some simply for emphasis.
Not sure if I'm expressing clearly the differences I'm observing between the change leading to different idiomatic terms, but I find the "literally" difference to be more of an understandable or natural shift. Not that I care for it any more than the first two examples.