[Repost] 4 Good Reasons Why People Say “I Could Care Less” (by Arika Okrent)

4 Good Reasons Why People Say “I Could Care Less”

 Cf. original: “http://mentalfloss.com/article/55388/4-good-reasons-why-people-say-i-could-care-less“

Arika Okrent

filed under: language, linguistics

IMAGE CREDIT:

THINKSTOCK

March 4th: It’s not only a date, it’s an imperative (march forth!). Since 2008 it has also been National Grammar Day, a holiday conceived by Martha Brockenbrough of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. Rather than use the occasion as a chance to go around correcting mistakes or teaching the finer points of usage (plenty of other people have those beats covered), I like to take the opportunity to focus on the sometimes weird and wonderful things that languages do (or that people do with languages). Last year I had fun with 7 Sentences That Sound Crazy But Are Still Grammatical. This year I’d like to go over a few good reasons why people say, “I could care less.” The list does not include “because they’re stupid and have no idea how logic works.” It turns out, there are a number of things about English that conspire to make “I could care less” a less irrational phrase than it might seem.

1. SARCASM

A number of language writers have suggested that “could care less” has a sarcastic reading, conveying something like “Ha! As if there were something in the world I could care less about.” There are some American Yiddish-inflected phrases that work this way, like “I should be so lucky!” (meaning “there’s no way I’m ever gonna be that lucky”) or “I should care!” (why should I care?). Even if “could care less” didn’t originate from a sarcastic intent, it matches up well enough with these other forms in the language to help give it staying power.

2. POSITIVE/NEGATIVE PHRASE PAIRS

Why use “could care less” if we also have “couldn’t care less”? There are other pairs of phrases in English about which you could ask the same question. Why say “that will teach you to leave your car unlocked” when you really mean “that will teach you not to leave your car unlocked.” Some other phrases that can mean the same thing with or without the negation:

You know squat about that. You don’t know squat about that.

I wonder whether we can make that work. I wonder whether we can’t make that work.

You shouldn’t go, I think. You shouldn’t go, I don’t think.

I can hardly wait. I can’t hardly wait.

Again, there’s an existing framework that helps “could care less” blend right in.

3. IMPLIED COMPARISON

Evidence for the use of “could care less” goes back to 1955, with “couldn’t care less” appearing only about 10 years before that. But long before that the phrase “No one could care less than I” was in use. Think about how you might respond to such a phrase in a certain type of conversation. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life! How dare they imply such a thing! No one could care less for the trappings of fame than I!”

“I could, darling. I could care less.”

The rest of the comparison, “than you,” is left understood. Perhaps “I could care less” also carries a shadow of the original phrase and a hidden comparison. “I could care less … than anyone.”

4. IDIOMS DON’T CARE ABOUT LOGIC

People might not have any thought of sarcasm, positive/negative phrase pairs, or implied comparison when they use “I could care less,” but when they use it, it’s as a set idiom, something they’ve heard before and learned as a unit. We have plenty of idioms that serve us perfectly well, despite the gaps in logic that appear if you look at them too closely. Consider “head over heels” (shouldn’t it be heels over head?) or “have your cake and eat it too?” (shouldn’t it be eat your cake and have it too?) or “the exception proves the rule” (shouldn’t it be the exception invalidates the rule?). There are reasons these idioms developed the way they did, but we don’t have to know anything about those reasons, or the original meanings, to use them perfectly sensibly. Same goes for “I could care less,” which people only ever use to mean “I couldn’t care less,” never the opposite. It doesn’t cause legitimate confusion, though it does cause quite a bit of consternation. In any case, it’s here to stay.

For more on “could care less” see the collection of links on this topic at LanguageLog, columns by Jan Freeman at Boston Globe, John McIntyre at the Baltimore Sun, and Ben Zimmer at Visual Thesaurus, and the snappy overview by Bill Walsh in Yes, I Could Care Less: How to Be a Language Snob Without Being a Jerk.

March 4, 2014 – 11:00am

Arika Okrent

Linguist, author of In the Land of Invented Languages, lives in Philadelphia, talks with a Chicago accent.

If you love something… (Time for a little fun!)

Post per gli umoristi della traduzione, per chi ha qualche minuto da dedicare al mio blog e per chi è casualmente passato di qua ed ha voglia di farsi due risate.

Nei momenti di pura follia, che accompagnano una giornata-tipo del traduttore, c’è anche la ricerca di risposte a domande che oserei definire “esistenziali”.
Ogni traduttore ha le proprie, più o meno profonde che siano, e si racchiudono in grandi macrogruppi (diversi anch’essi da traduttore a traduttore).
Quella che vi propongo oggi fa parte dei miei “DUBBI da ANNI”.

Tutto inizia nel 1999 con la canzone di questo video

What a Girl Wants (Christina Aguilera) [1999]

in cui al minuto 1.55 Xtina canta “They say, if you love somethin’, let it go / If it comes back, it’s yours and that’s how you know / It’s for keeps, yeah, it’s for sure“.
Mi sono sempre domandata il senso di questa frase, che è poi diventata un tormentone assoluto e vittima di stalking da parte di molte adolescenti-blogger-tumbleraddicted etc (come mostrato nella foto qui sotto).

Per quale assurdo motivo se ami qualcosa (qualcuno), dovresti lasciarla andare per avere la certezza che sia tua per sempre nel momento in cui ritorna?
E poi… Perché è stato aggiunto – a mo’ di corollario – che se non torna, non era destino che andasse diversamente?
Ma che cosa? Di cosa stiamo parlando?
Carissimo tu che hai inventato per primo questo concetto assurdo, *imho* hai detto una delle più grandi cavolate mai sentite.

1. Se ami veramente qualcosa, non dovresti MAI, e ripeto MAI, abbandonarla. Un amico, un animale, un sogno, un lavoro, una qualsiasicosavivengainmente;
2. Se ti lascio andare, un motivo ci sarà e, probabilmente, non spero assolutamente di rivedere mai più quella cosa/persona sulla mia strada;
3. Se non era destino andasse così… CI MANCHEREBBE PURE! Perché mai sognare di veder tornare un qualcosa che mi sono “amabilmente” lasciata alle spalle?!

Per questo, ad oggi, in mio aiuto arrivano altre immagini dalla rete.

Per esempio questa recita: “Se ami qualcosa, non puoi lasciarla andare mai, nemmeno per un secondo, altrimenti è persa per sempre”.
Si avvicina abbastanza alla mia idea di ‘cavolata’, però mi sembra un pochino (tantissimo) estremista. Non esaspererei la cosa al punto da lanciare un’anatema o ergermi sul malcapitato in stile Gandalf.

“You shall not pass” -Gandalf [from The Lord of the Rings]

Personalmente, preferisco una più modesta regola di un gentiluomo. In questo caso la n. 163:

In tempi recenti lo stesso tema è stato trattato anche nelle stupende E-cards.
A. Una versione “autocelebrativa”

B. Una versione “restrittiva”

C. Una versione “vendicativa”

D. Una versione “punitiva” (con tanto di caccia!)

E. Una versione “definitiva” (ndt: non ha neanche bisogno di inseguire la ‘cosa’!)

Un po’ di Damon Salvatore ci sta sempre bene.
[Ian Somerhalder]

#perlediunatraduttrice
#translatorsgonnatranslate

Per chi volesse lanciarsi in qualche riflessione filosofica, consiglio questo link sull’argomento: http://philosiblog.com/2011/08/16/if-you-love-something-let-it-go-if-it-comes-back-to-you-its-yours-forever-if-it-dosent-then-it-was-never-meant-to-be/

Per chi invece “sa di amare la sua donna solo quando la lascia andare”, propongo un po’ di Passenger e la sua Let her go.

Well, You only need the light when it’s burning low,
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow,
Only know you love her when you let her go.

Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missing home.
Only know you love her when you let her go,
And you let her go.

Staring at the bottom of your glass
Hoping one day you’ll make a dream last
But dreams come slow and they go so fast
You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you’ll understand why
Everything you touch surely dies

But you only need the light when it’s burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go

Staring at the ceiling in the dark
Same old empty feeling in your heart
‘Cause Love comes slow and it goes so fast

Well you see her when you fall asleep
But never to touch and never to keep
Cause you loved her too much and you dived too deep

Well you only need the light when it’s burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go
And you let her go ooooh ooooh oh no

And you let her go
ooooh ooooh oh no

Well you let her go

ooooh ooooh oh no

Cause you only need the light when it’s burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go

Cause you only need the light when it’s burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low
Only hate the road when you’re missing home
Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go

Quote of the day

“Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue” (Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader, p. 57).