The issue here has to do with the semantics of "caring".

You're treating this like it's something that can be measured like we can rate the degree of "caring" on a number line. And intuitively this makes some sense as we know that we can care not at all about something, or a little bit, or a medium amount, etc. So your thought process goes basically "well if the degree of caring is 7/10 then obviously it could be less or it could be more", not realizing that it could be locked in exactly where it is and that it couldn't be less or more. Like the cat-like girl I love unconditionally. She's locked in where she is. I could not love her any less than I do because I lost the keys to her bitcoin wallet.

I've got an avocado I'd like to eat but it's not quite ripe. It could definitely be more ripe and tomorrow it'll be ready. It'll probably still be good the day after tomorrow but three days from now it'll be rotten. It can be more ripe but it cannot be less ripe because that's now how ripeness as a property works.

It's like age. The oldest person in the world couldn't be any younger.

Ok, I'll go along with the above to see where it's going. Would you agree that given this reasoning, it would be incorrect to say "I could care less" when you mean "I don't care at all"?

Yeah but like I said, that's never been my argument. I'm saying that "couldn't care less" is more complicated and not the opposite of "could care less".

Great! So we're in violent agreement that "could care less" is incorrect 100% of the time as used, and as an aside, you've invented a new phrase. Glad we finally got to the bottom of this, turned out to be a tricky one.

If you disagree, find me one example of "could care less" being used to mean something other than "don't care at all", as can easily be inferred from context.

Yes, that's what you shifted the argument to - a rather silly discussion about something that pretty much everyone agrees on once your argument was understood, and is completely irrelevant to the initial discussion, which was that "I could care less" was being used as an improper substitute for "I couldn't care less".

You know, back a few hours ago when you were saying stuff like this:

But rather than just move on when you realized you had that wrong, or that you were making an argument that had nothing to do with the initial discussion, you moved into this weird tangent of the possible meanings of "I couldn't care less".

I checked the first 50 or so of the 1226 examples in the COCA and no hits. But I can still imagine some contexts where it would be ok. I sort of imagine there has to be at least one like the below example I just made up out of the 1226 but I'm not going to spend my time looking for it.

"Now that the price of bitcoin is hitting record highs I've been checking it like 5 times per day. Given the relatively small amount of money I have invested there it's definitely something I could care less about, but I also check the price 3 or 4 other currencies on a regular basis"

I don't think those posts show whatever you think they show. But what aspect of what i said there do you want to disagree with?

Yep, after a further review I stand by every single one of those posts.

In those posts I acknowledge that "could care less" is incorrect.

Right. Similarly, the word "literally" is also occasionally used correctly. What we are discussing here are common mistakes people make. I am willing to wager that at least 99% of the time you see "could care less" used, it is used, incorrectly, to mean "don't care at all".

Ur awl dum

Right here Bobo.

Is this the part you're saying I ignored or changed my argument about?

Lol what? It was pretty obvious to everyone that you were defending the use of "could care less" to mean "don't care at all". Born at night, not last night, Luckbox.

That is what it means because it's used at an 11:1 ratio compared to "couldn't care less" (which can be any amount of caring).

It's just flawed from a logical perspective. No part of my argument has changed here.

Ok tbf after seeing Rickroll's post I revised my stance some on "couldn't care less", and then we spent the whole rest of the time discussing it.

OK so you agree it's incorrect, but you want to make a descriptive argument that it's what it means anyway? You should have been explicit about that. That's the argument didace made, which was readily accepted, but it's not the argument you were making.

You seem to have been conflating your descriptive argument with some other argument about other possible meanings, and at no point until now did you acknowledge that the prevalent usage was logically incorrect, which is all anyone arguing against you was trying to prove.

It's literally my second post on the topic.

I write like 1 paragraph total about "could care less" and spent the rest of the time producing thought experiments and analogies about girlfriends, bitcoins, and avocados on "couldn't care less" producing multiple pages worth of text while saying that I don't have a lot to say on "could care less", and Bobo thinks the one paragraph I did have to say (which I still stand by 100%) is somehow evidence of some hypocrisy,

Lol.

That post is next to indecipherable. It certainly isn't an acknowledgement that saying "could care less" is incorrect if you mean "I don't care". If it had been clear, you wouldn't have had upwards of 3 different posters arguing against you.

As an aside, I think this may well be my new favourite thread ITF.

If 3+ posters all misunderstand you in the same way, I don't think you need to send out a search party to find the common denominator.

If you guys thought we were talking about something which we clearly were not talking about then that's not on me.

Kinda is tho, don't you think? None of us are dummies and we all "misunderstood" you in an identical manner. What does this tell us, Watson?

Also, Bobo bolded the incorrect part of this post in his gotcha. The "go based solely on usage" there is relevant. I am not saying that "could care less" is correct as he seems to think be rather that it's the people's choice. The implication is obviously that it is incorrect logically.

The implication was anything but obvious.

I don't think you even did misunderstand me honestly. There wasn't any time in the discussion with you or Chillrob where it seemed like you guys were unclear on what we were discussing-- at least not up until the very end when I had to repeat myself that i didn't have a lot to say on "could care less".

Let me help you out; here's the start of the exchange:

So, this made zero sense in reply to Crossnerd. I've never in my life seen anyone post or say "I could care less" and have someone reply that they should say "I could care more", as that would be a really odd reply. People who say "I could care less" mean "I couldn't care less", and that's what people tell them.

So, CN goes on to point that out:

And you reply with this:

And of course that first sentence isn't at all what people mean in the given context. There's nothing flawed about it. The fact that you've come up with scenarios where "couldn't care less" actually means they care but are personally incapable of caring less doesn't change what people mean in the usage being discussed.

Than d2 provides an explanatory diagram:

To which you reply with:

Not understanding, or ignoring, the point being made.

We get this a couple posts later:

Which of course we all know, as that's been the discussion from the very beginning - that they mean that, and it's incorrect. That's all the discussion was ever about.

So I'll stick with this:

Which of the two this was (that you got this wrong, or were making an argument that had nothing to do with the initial discussion), I have no idea nor do I really care. Either way you moved us from a very simple discussion of the obvious fact that "I could care less" is incorrect when suggesting someone doesn't care, to a weird tangent of the possible meanings of "I couldn't care less".