Monday, December 11, 2006

"I Could Care Less"

Of all the pet peeves that I have...this seems to take the cake. I hear so many people utter the expression, "I could care less." And each time I hear it, I want to say, "go ahead then, care less than you already do." I see/hear this expression constantly misused in print, by sportscasters/newscasters, and often by rather intelligent people. The logic somehow escapes them. I think what bothers me particularly about the misuse of this expression is that it is used in a strong manner, to really make a strong emotional assertion...for example, "I could care less about how you feel." Well, then obviously you still care and there is room for you to care less, so we're okay then, right?

But I know how rude it is to correct people and so I practically bite my tongue off each time I hear it. I know I am certainly not perfect. But come on, it should be "I COULDN'T care less!"

3 comments:

five successes said...

"Like I could care less" if it could be made workable :-)

No doubt that will make Safire sharpen his pencil.

It is one that irritates me as well. Although, my pet peeve is people who use ignorant instead of arrogant ("I can't stand people who are ignorant").

- Richard (for some reason, blogger is giving me the hardest time leaving a comment today using my normal blogger account, had to use a different one)

B said...

yes, "like i could care less" would be appropriate...but i almost never hear it used that way. :-)

wow...great call on the ignorant vs. arrogant. that too makes my skin crawl. just the misuse of ignorant in general irritates me. haha...great to know that i am not alone in these pet peeves!

by the way, i couldn't help but investigate this "five successes" blog and i really love it. in fact, i emailed you with my five successes of the day. i hope you don't mind if i link it to my blog??

five successes said...

Go ahead. I have to update my successes from the past few days. I had access to computer over the weekend and apathy has kept me from updating it.

[Aaarrrgghhh! Blogger is still not accepting my non-beta account]