I like grammar. I might not be among (not between, although amongst is also correct if not a little archaic) the best and brightest, but I like to think I know my way around a sentence. It wasn’t a formal part of my school curriculum, but my mom knows her stuff about words and, as recently as yesterday, continues to keep me on the straight and narrow:
Not to be critical about your blog, but you should be using the possessive form of pronouns modifying present participles. I know that everyday English has become sloppy, but I think it sounds better in its correct form.
For example: my being (not me being) or his giving (not him giving)Professor Aswell
And so we come to yesterday afternoon, when I was discussing Monday Night Football with a coworker. I said, “The game was close when I went to bed. I wasn’t that emotionally involved in it. I guess I like to see the Saints win, although I could care less about the Titans.”
To which my coworker, whom (not who) I should mention I like a lot, said, “What you meant to say was, ‘I couldn’t care less about the Titans’.”
To which I held myself back from saying, “No, what I meant to say was don’t tell me what I meant to say.”
So. Could I care less about the Titans? Yes. Let’s say Vince Young had a season-ending injury - then I would care less about watching the team. Or if a better game were on a different channel at the same time - then I would care less about the Titans. And the use of the word although in my sentence implies (not infers) that I feel lukewarm about both teams.
I guess my point is that even though some people confuse the two sentences doesn’t mean that the phrase I could care less doesn’t exist at all as a correct sentence at some points in time. It could mean, “I care more than I might, even though I barely care,” or, “If I really dug deep and put some effort in, I could find it in myself to care less. But it would really be a struggle.”
I find the same phenomenon has popped up concerning when to say “me” and when to say “I” when referring to you and another person. There’s been a lot of overcorrection towards “I” in the last few years. I think it’s because so many moms and English teachers corrected us, and we didn’t think long enough about why. Even though it’s correct to say, “Sarah and I went to the store,” it isn’t correct to say, “The teacher talked to Sarah and I.” All you have to ask yourself is, am I the subject of the sentence or not?
Well, I can feel this entry quickly devolving into an aggravated lecture. I guess the point is that we could all care more — not only about the rules of grammar, but about how and why the rules are in place. Perhaps we couldn’t care more. I’m not really sure.
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September 26, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Melissa
My seventh grade sex-ed teacher was the one who introduced the difference between “couldn’t care less” and “could care less.” Needless to say, at 13, none of us could have cared less about her distinction.
September 26, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Seth
I didn’t have much formal grammar education in school either. I wonder if I would be better at it if I actually had to learn it instead of writing reading journals and poetry in language arts class. If I didn’t have to write to keep my job and edit the same paper over and over again, I probably would not have learned the grammar I did. I almost didn’t blog because of the grammar police or people who might think I was stupid. I can’t imagine if my mom e-mailed me that.
I did correct a student the other day for writing intensive purposes, so perhaps I’m getting better.
September 26, 2007 at 5:04 pm
underwhelm
The could/couldn’t distinction here is not a matter of grammar, but of meaning. A philosopher by the name of Paul Grice describes a series of conversational maxims that explain why the phrase “I could care less” is an aberration.
While Grice’s maxims are not “rules” or necessary aspects of communication, they are presumptions that ordinarily apply. When you utter the phrase “I could care less,” you wind up violating one or more, such as:
“Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.” and “Be relevant.”
Is it relevant or informative to merely point out when you could care less about something? Wouldn’t that be the case a vast majority of the time? If so, why do you feel the need to communicate it? The phrase winds up prompting uncertainty rather than elucidating the feelings it is purportedly intended to convey. Which makes it poor communication.
The fact that apologists for the phrase have to go to such great lengths to form a retrospective justification for its use only proves it. It’s never uttered with these convoluted affinities in mind—it’s only ever used to express the simpler, and more apparently meaningful emotion that your coworker’s correction achieves with far greater efficiency and effect.
September 26, 2007 at 5:24 pm
underwhelm
Although, after re-re-reading your post, I see that you’re an exception and you did mean what you said.
I think the problem is that you’re more aware of what you say than 99% of people, who don’t/can’t use language with as much nuance.
September 26, 2007 at 5:27 pm
seaswell
Hey Underwhelm
Nice points and thanks for reading and responding. You’re certainly right about my going through great lengths to justify saying “I could care less.” I’m always embarrassed when someone corrects my speech.
However, I don’t think that I agree with the central idea of Grice’s ““Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.” and “Be relevant.”
If everyone spoke in this straightforward, relevant, clear way, I don’t see how nuance, wordplay, double meanings or humor could exist. Language is fun and should be fun - and I think saying that “I could care less for the Titans” is more interesting than saying “I care somewhat for the Titans.” I think there’s also the missing matter of tone and delivery.
For a few other examples, let’s take my boyfriend Ben, who is a sports writer. In one of he recent articles, instead of saying a fighter was knocked out, he said, “he woke up in the locker room.” When writing an article about how little an unknown fighter made off the fight he said, “while Liddel took home $500 million dollars, Jardine had to take the bus home.” It might not be straightforward and it may even be confusing, but it’s more fun and interesting to read. If he wrote down exactly what happened as clearly as possible in these editorials, they would be dry and lifeless.
Really, though, I’m just happy to have a good conversation about languarge, meaning, and grammar. Thanks -Sarah
September 26, 2007 at 5:38 pm
kidsilkhaze
I wish I had had more English language grammar in school, instead of taking the rules I learned in French class and trying to apply them to my native tongue. On the other hand, every time they tried to teach me the little bit they did teach, I tuned out.
Maybe I should take grammar now?
The I/ me thing is something I always get wrong, and it is because of a zealous over-correcting teacher very early on and a classmate who always started sentences with “Me and x did….”
September 26, 2007 at 5:55 pm
The Fighting Life
You know who would love conversational guidelines like “Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.” and “Be relevant.”? Robots.
And every movie from Terminator to Stealth warns us of accepting robots into our lives. They will surely turn us one day. Then all the maxims in the world won’t save us, but laser guns will.
Basically what I’m saying is, let’s all put our heads together and build some laser guns. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.
September 26, 2007 at 6:13 pm
seaswell
I guess I just can’t stop nerding out today. Here’s one more thought:
I think that you have to have the foundation that Paul Grice sets
forth BEFORE you can more on to more complicated uses of language. I
guess it’s just like any other thing - painting or any other fine art would
work as an example — you have to learn the rules before you can start
to break them.
I also think it is very weird that they don’t teach grammar in school any more. I know that it isn’t fun or anything, but still. Like Jennie, I think I learned a lot of what I know through learning Latin in school.
September 27, 2007 at 12:48 am
Roger
HAHA! Great entry.
September 27, 2007 at 6:19 am
Sarah B.
The overuse of the “I” pronoun really bugs me, but not as much as it used to. I used to get angry, thinking, “They talk as if they think they’re right, but they’re SO not,” but now I just know that they were taught wrong in grammar school–or not taught at all.
September 27, 2007 at 1:13 pm
sls
Ha! That I-me thing makes me annoyed/amused every time! From now on, I’m just going to use ‘me’. Excuse me. Me hungry. Me am going to eat now.
September 27, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Patrick
hey Sarah-
Wordplay, etc. fall outside of Grice’s aims at formalizing meaning mostly (if not wholly) because they flaunt the maxims. And indeed things like sarcasm, double-entendres, etc., find a large portion of their meaning in extra-linguistic facts about intonation and context. What I think is the point is that the logic of conversation wherein the two (or more) speakers are to have a logical conversation one of them in response to
“Man, that professor gives so much homework,” would not say “man, my foot hurts,” where that was meant to be a logical or meaningful part of the conversation. Or as in a lecture when a student brings up a wholly irrelevant tangent. These cases do nothing to further the conversation with their illogical insertion.
Flaunting the maxims of logic and conversation is an essential part of the use of language. It’s just important to distinguish the intended use of language and its impact on meaning.
A classic example is the letter of recommendation written for a student applying to grad school that reads:
Student X is always in class and has very good penmanship.
In this case, its what is not said that is important. Obviously the writer is not being relevant to the question of “why are you recommending this student for acceptance”, but the meaning is clear (these two things are among the best things I can say about X) precisely because it flaunts the Gricean maxim(s).
Other than a defense of Grice, this post is irrelevant to another otherwise great post on your blog!
pjm
November 12, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Maryanne Ortega
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