by hotspur 20 Replies latest jw friends
Ok.... so from here on in we're talkiing semantics?
Less tends to suggest more so 'care' is quantified. Therefore I struggle with the non-quantative form of 'care'. In otherwords, I'm having to make an assumption based on context.
Still, never mind - sorted for the most part. Substantially it's the same both sides of the pond.
Thanks.
Now all we have to do is to reduce your national election campaign to the six weeks or so we have here compared to your 12 months!
I found this online and I think it's a pretty good explanation:
The idiom "couldn't care less", meaning "doesn't care at all" (the meaning in full is "cares so little that he couldn't possibly care less"), originated in Britain around 1940. "Could care less", which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around 1960. We get disputes about whether the latter was originally a mis-hearing of the former; whether it was originally ironic; or whether it arose from uses where the negative element was separated from "could" ("None of these writers could care less..."). Henry Churchyard believes that this sentence by Jane Austen may be pertinent: "You know nothing and you care less, as people say." (Mansfield Park (1815), Chapter 29) Meaning-saving elaborations have also been suggested: "As if I could care less!"; "I could care less, but I'd have to try"; "If I cared even one iota -- which I don't --, then I could care less." Recently encountered has been "could give a damn", used in the sense "couldn't give a damn". An earlier transition in which "not" was dropped was the one that gave us "but" in the sense of "only". "I will not say but one word", where "but" meant "(anything) except", became "I will say but one word." Other idioms that say the opposite of what they mean include: "head over heels" (which could mean turning cartwheels, i.e. "head over heels over head over heels", but is also used to mean "upside- down", i.e. "heels over head"); "Don't sneeze more than you can help" (meaning "more than you cannot help"; "help" here means "prevent"); "It's hard to open, much less acknowledge, the letters" (where "less" means "harder", i.e. "more"); "I shouldn't wonder if it didn't rain"; "I miss not seeing you"; and "I turned my life around 360 degrees" -- not to mention undisputedly ironic phrases such as "fat chance", "Thanks a *lot*", and "I should worry".http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxcouldc.html
thanks Irdnomo and Mrs Jones - I will use it both ways now...... lol
I like irony
I really, really hated this expression when I was little.
This may help
The scenery is distracting be she does know exactly what she is talking about
btt coz i am a pedant.
Wobble
sometimes I could care less, sometimes I couldn't care less
I take real offense to this issue for some reason. "Couldn't" makes more sense.
I also really dislike the improper use of Your & You're.
Misuse of Their, There, & They're really chaps my hide too.
It bothers me when people say "Axe" when they mean to say "Ask".
The recent trend in the English language now that involves lazily dropping the letter "S" at the end of words. Baby Daddy, How she move, She hate me, etc.
I read somewhere, I think in a song lyric, where the vapid strumpet who wrote the song actually listed the word "Trynna" when she actually meant to say "Trying To". Ugh. I hate laziness in language.
Also, when people type "Use to" when they really mean "Used to". Same with "Suppose to" instead of "Supposed To".
"If I Could Do it, Anybody Could do it". instead of the proper "If I CAN do it, anybody CAN do it".
I don't think that any other language is as misused and disrespected by its own native speakers as English. I'm not a grammar nazi and I don't think it's productive to correct people when they make mistakes, but I cringe when I hear "me and her were going to the store" or "her and I were talking". The rules are not complicated and yes, language does evolve. Slang is not the same as grammatical errors - slang can be effective and eventually becomes accepted and I don't advocate constant formal speech so it gets a little gray at times; but come on people, those of you who only speak and write one language should at least care about it! When you learn other languages you realize how much those native speakers care about their mother tongue and they WILL correct you if you make an error - it's about respect for the language.
Just my 2 cents...