
One of my pet peeves is people using the phrase I could care less.
No.
The expression is I couldn’t care less.
And no, I don’t care that the could version is becoming common. It’s wrong. It’s lazy. Is it really that much harder to say or write couldn’t?
Every time I read I could care less, I’m thrown out of the story, snarl some curses, and only then return to my reading. If someone uses this in conversation, I have to bite my tongue not to correct them.
Not only that, I could care less makes no sense.
Think of it this way. You have a scale from 0 (Don’t care at ALL) to 1 (Care a LOT).
I couldn’t care less. That’s 0.
I could care less. That’s any number greater than 0. Because I could care less means there is a lower amount of caring on the scale.
Yes, I’m a math geek as well as a language geek.
Yes, I understand that sometimes language changes in ways that don’t make sense. But this is one phrase I’m never going to accept. And I couldn’t care less if that marks me as a complete grammar tyrant.