Let’s continue with Word Knots, where we look at common instances of words that are often confused or misused. Today we focus on a commonly misused phrase.

Once again our source for this is installment is The Dictionary of Disagreeable English by Robert Hartwell Fiske (Chicago: Writer’s Digest Books). It’s a great book: Check it out.

Rather than take a stern ‘grammar police’ approach we always try to keep it light and in each installment point out examples of semantic confusion that should be considered “must to avoid.”

From Fiske (excerpted):

could care less

Solecistic for couldn’t care less.  • Then you end up with a site that makes you happy but which everyone else on the planet could care less about. USE could not care less.

As Fiske says:

However it is meant, whatever the speaker’s intention, the phrase could care less means just the opposite of the one it is so often misused for. Though hardly elegant in English, couldn’t care less means that apathy reigns in regard to whatever is being discussed; could care less clearly means that there is still interest.

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If I had a dollar for every time I read (or more commonly heard) this phrase misused I could retire. The reality is that there will be very, very few instances when “could care less” is actually intended. Nine times out of ten (at least) when someone writes or says “could care less” they actually mean “couldn’t care less.”

Example: 

The guest speaker was considered a real windbag: The audience couldn’t care less what he said.

Advice: Don’t walk, but run from ever using Reddit for language advice: I’ve seen posts there where the posters claim that the phrases are interchangeable. They most definitely are NOT. And this is a case where I’m not a proponent of allowing common misusage to stand.

Once again, word choice is critical, which is why checking your work is an important step toward ensuring that your intended meaning is clear.

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