The Grammar of Politics Thread
Now that I think about it, the "with your bullshit" part is actually always there when you tell a person to **** off. It's implied. No one ever gets told to **** off unless they just said some bullshit.
But the subject wouldn't be "you"-- "you" is the direct object. The speaker (in this case me), would be the subject. Since it's an imperative (e.g. a command), think of it as "[strike]I want you to[/strike] **** off [strike]with your bullshit
Well this brings me back to the horrors of grammar classes taught by Sister Martin. But the subject of an imperative sentence is always you. 😀
This may sound strange, but every single command has the same subject! Yikes! How is that even possible?
Well, since commands are always speaking to someone or something (you've got to address them if you're going to ask them to do something), the subject is always the word you.
You may have noticed that the word "you" is not even in a command. Because of this, the subject is actually called you understood, and it is written like this: (you)
This means that the subject is the word you, but since you is not written or spoken in the sentence, it is simply understood and is written in parentheses.
No Rickroll had it right. "Couldn't care less" or it's converse "couldn't care more" could be anywhere on the "caring continuum". It means "this is my level of caring and it's not changing", if you want to take the actual meaning of the words.
Victor is correct in that "could care less" is what people actually use to mean that they don't care.
Please explain how it's impossible that "couldn't care less" doesn't mean that you care so much that it would be impossible to care less.
Use whatever means you want but preferably logic and semantics.
Seems pretty clear I'm concerned with "couldn't care less".
I don't think you even did misunderstand me honestly. There wasn't any time in the discussion with you or Chillrob where it seemed like you guys were unclear on what we were discussing-- at least not up until the very end when I had to repeat myself that i didn't have a lot to say on "could care less".
OK bro, you were crystal clear and everyone else lacks reading comprehension.
Let me help you out; here's the start of the exchange:
So, this made zero sense in reply to Crossnerd. I've never in my life seen anyone post or say "I could care less" and have someone reply that they should say "I could care more", as that would be a really odd reply. People who say "I could care less" mean "I couldn't care less", and that's what people tell them.
So, CN goes on to point that out:
And you reply with this:
And of course that f
Ok Bobo you got me.
I could care less is meant to be sarcastic. It's generally said with the wrong inflection though. It should be I COULD care less. Meaning if I tried really hard I can theoretically conceive of a way to care even less than I do now. It's like "Way to go Einstein",which is a phrase never used in a complimentary fashion even though Einstein is a universally understood avatar of genius.
For all "intensive purpose"..... I could care less and I couldn't care less mean the same thing.
Either way you moved us from a very simple discussion of the obvious fact that "I could care less" is incorrect when suggesting someone doesn't care, to a weird tangent of the possible meanings of "I couldn't care less".
Hopefully you now understand why I didn't have a lot to say on "could care less"-- it's boring. Not sure what your problem is though.
And people still do say "couldn't care less" so it's not like it's some hypothetical statement.
And it should be "could care more" because that's completely unambiguous.
I could care less is meant to be sarcastic. It's generally said with the wrong inflection though. It should be I COULD care less. Meaning if I tried really hard I can theoretically conceive of a way to care even less than I do now. It's like "Way to go Einstein",which is a phrase never used in a complimentary fashion even though Einstein is a universally understood avatar of genius.
For all "intensive purpose"..... I could car
You're about a hundred posts too late to the party lol.
Hopefully you now understand why I didn't have a lot to say on "could care less"-- it's boring. Not sure what your problem is though.
And people still do say "couldn't care less" so it's not like it's some hypothetical statement.
And it should be "could care more" because that's completely unambiguous.
Wtf dude? The simple point being made is that people say A when they mean B. A is logically incorrect. B is logically correct. Obviously when discussing this, one needs to say what A means and what B means.
I guess you can have a discussion with yourself about various other ways to use A and/or B, but everyone else is just making the point that people incorrectly use A when the logically correct usage in context is B.
Wtf dude? The simple point being made is that people say A when they mean B. A is incorrect. B is correct. Obviously when discussing this, one needs to say what A means and what B means.
I said in the very beginning that both A and B are flawed. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here though.
I could care less is meant to be sarcastic. It's generally said with the wrong inflection though. It should be I COULD care less. Meaning if I tried really hard I can theoretically conceive of a way to care even less than I do now. It's like "Way to go Einstein",which is a phrase never used in a complimentary fashion even though Einstein is a universally understood avatar of genius.
That certainly is a possible use of it, but I'd wager that 95%+ of those who use it are not doing so in that way. And 100% of people who I've heard saying it, unless they're truly terrible at delivering sarcasm.
For all "intensive purpose"..... I could care less and I couldn't care less mean the same thing.
😃
Hopefully you now understand why I didn't have a lot to say on "could care less"-- it's boring. Not sure what your problem is though.
No problem, I was just pointing out that you had taken us off on a weird tangent. The reason it got so long is that you weren't especially clear with anyone that you were doing so.
And people still do say "couldn't care less" so it's not like it's some hypothetical statement.
And it should be "could care more" because that's completely unambiguous.
LOL, no. But at this point I assume you're doing this intentionally, so while I'll respond in case you really are serious, I'll try to keep this very brief and not get sucked into another LB tangent.
"I couldn't care less", in the context discussed, is not at all ambiguous. It tends to be extremely clear when someone says "I couldn't care less" and mean that they don't care. "Could care more" is not even close to the same thing. If I don't care, I could care more. If I care a little, I could care more. If I care quite a bit, I could still care more. "could care more" is very ambiguous.
If you want to continue arguing that point, I'll leave it to others as this is really getting silly and at this point I'm kind of sorry about my part in it. :p
I said in the very beginning that both A and B are flawed. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here though.
B is not flawed. It is entirely unambiguous to everyone except, it seems, you. I could come up with any number of fantastical scenarios where most words or phrases have some nonstandard meaning in a contrived context. That doesn't make the standard usage of that word or phrase flawed or ambiguous.
To pick up OK ed's post, I could probably contrive a scenario where "intensive purposes" is correct. That doesn't mean that as used, 100% of the time the user means "intents and purposes" and it doesn't make that phrase flawed or ambiguous.
B is not flawed. It is entirely unambiguous to everyone except, it seems, you. I could come up with any number of fantastical scenarios where most words or phrases have some nonstandard meaning in a contrived context. That doesn't make the standard usage of that word or phrase flawed or ambiguous.
To pick up OK ed's post, I could probably contrive a scenario where "intensive purposes" is correct. That doesn't mean that as used, 100% of the t
If ambiguity is the standard then A is equally as effective as B. Just as you say no one would confuse B for anything else, no one would confuse A as well, which is why both are used. But just as A doesn't logically mean what it's intended to mean, neither does B-- which again is why both are flawed.
If ambiguity is the standard then A is equally as effective as B. Just as you say no would confuse B for anything else, no one would confuse A as well, which is why both are used. But just as A doesn't logically mean what it's intended to mean, neither does B-- which again, is why both are flawed.
Ambiguity is not the standard. "I couldn't care less" unequivocally means "I don't care at all" to everyone except you.
B
To pick up OK ed's post, I could probably contrive a scenario where "intensive purposes" is correct. That doesn't mean that as used, 100% of the time the user means "intents and purposes" and it doesn't make that phrase flawed or ambiguous.
All intensive purposes I think is obviously wrong. I could care less has maybe become an idiom on its own despite the literal meaning of the individual words.
Ambiguity is not the standard. "I couldn't care less" unequivocally means "I don't care at all" to everyone except you.
You're making ambiguity the standard right there. (although for sure saying it's not the standard then immediately following up with how your preferred version is unambiguous is quite a trick)
People also completely and unequivocally understand what "I could care less" means.
Logic was supposed to be the standard and A and B are both flawed there.
You're making ambiguity the standard right there. (although for sure saying it's not the standard then immediately following up with how your preferred version is unambiguous is quite a trick)
People also completely and unequivocally understand what "I could care less" means.
Logic was supposed to be the standard and A and B are both flawed there.
I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make any more.
Maybe in the North America. People don't make that mistake in the UK nearly as often in my experience.
I didn't know there was a British corpus but there is
https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/
A lot smaller apparently than the COCA (100 million words vs 1 billion) but there are 13 hits for your preferred version vs only 2 for the flawed American version-- so it looks like it also isn't used as much in the UK or the sampling might be different as well.
I didn't know there was a British corpus but there is
https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/
A lot smaller apparently than the COCA (100 million words vs 1 billion)
Sounds about right, you lot definitely seem to bloviate about 10 times as much.
We could probably trim another 10 mill easy if we deported chez.
Maybe in the North America. People don't make that mistake in the UK nearly as often in my experience.
I already covered this
Let me know if anyone is interested in discussing eggcorns. I know many of you are keen to “tow” that line.
Might be a bit of a Sysiphean task if Luckbox is going to drag every single one out for pages with some rather tenuous logic about how either both versions or neither version are right.
Ok here is a quiz:
What is the most phonologically complex one syllable word in English? No googling.
