Latest language perversions à la "could care less" or figurative-literal

[HordHolm]

There are plenty of phrases that don't make sense if you try to apply them literally.

To have your cake and eat it... well, of course, you can't eat your cake until you have it. Until you have it its only potential cake, not actual cake. But nobody* really objects that it should really be 'to eat your cake and still have it', and yet the meaning is understood and accepted even if it's logically wrong.

*yes, sometimes some people do point this out. They're often fairly advanced students of English as a second/third/etc language.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've thought about this off and on for many years. As I was growing up EVERYONE said "I could care less." I pondered and pondered. Obviously it was inaccurate. When I grew up and moved to a different part of the country I heard people say "couldn't". But I think this particular phraseology needs to go in the category of regionalism.

It's an Americanism, I think. In Brit English, you'd always say, "I couldn't care less."

 

[XerXesXu]

It's an Americanism, I think. In Brit English, you'd always say, "I couldn't care less."

It works with a rising inflection:
'I could care less?'

 

[SimonDoom]

It's an Americanism, I think. In Brit English, you'd always say, "I couldn't care less."

I think so, too, but there are some Americans, like me, who absolutely cannot stand it, any more than I can stand "irregardless." Chalkboard scratchers, both of them.

 

[XerXesXu]

'Could I care less?'
'I could care less?'
and
'I couldn't care less.'
are three ways of saying the same thing in British English; one chooses which best suits the context.
I don't know if people can inflect in other English accents, so I don't know whether 'I could care less?' would travel.

 

[Britva415]

It works with a rising inflection:
'I could care less?'

I mean, that's only because in certain American dialects nothing is ever said without a rising inflection, so, everything has to work!

 

[JGittes]

Many years ago, a grammar school English teacher told me to write stories and essays in my own words. I follow that advice religiously but find no one understands anything I write.

 

[FeralSmile]

"Could/would/should of" when what's meant is "could/would/should have" bothers me every fucking time I see it. Yes, I realize that in many dialects it's commonly pronounced that way (i.e. "could've/would've/should've"). No, I still don't like it when people spell "have" as "of". Schwas happen, and they're fine, but this just feels like subliteracy.

 

[Abbafan]

This usage is literally centuries old at this point. It's not a new meaning.

I'm sure you could find examples of it being used that way going back quite a while. It's a lot more common now, though, in my experience.

Using literally that way, for emphasis I guess, probably did start with people misunderstanding it. The thing that annoys me about it is that people use literally that way most often in the same sort of situations where someone would use literally to mean not figuratively or not exaggerating.

If someone says their head literally exploded, you can be pretty sure what they meant. If they said that they literally shit their pants when they thought their parachute wasn't going to open after jumping out of a plane, it might be a little more unclear. LOL.

These days, ninety percent of the time I hear the word, people are using the word just for some added emphasis or to liven up a sentence. I'm resigned to it. I don't go around correcting people or complaining. What would be the point?

This thread does raise an interesting question, though. At what point can we say a word has gained a new meaning? If only a few people are using a word one way, I don't think changes need to be made to the dictionary. The same with slang uses of words that don't last too long. Cool has been around for decades, but rad went out with the 80s. Ironic is a word that's been misused, some might say, for a long time too. I think I hear ironic in sentences like, "It's so ironic how we both ended up going to the same movie at the same time!" more often than I hear it used with its dictionary definition. When such a large percentage of speakers use a word a particular way for so long, I don't know...

 

[HordHolm]

'Could I care less?'
'I could care less?'
and
'I couldn't care less.'
are three ways of saying the same thing in British English; one chooses which best suits the context.
I don't know if people can inflect in other English accents, so I don't know whether 'I could care less?' would travel.

 

[StillStunned]

Ironic is a word that's been misused, some might say, for a long time too. I think I hear ironic in sentences like, "It's so ironic how we both ended up going to the same movie at the same time!" more often than I hear it used with its dictionary definition. When such a large percentage of speakers use a word a particular way for so long, I don't know...

(The bit about irony starts at around 1:45.)

 

[ronde]

Probably the highest scoring trigger word for me is "actually", as in "We actually drove to the city." How else would you drive to the city - virtually?

I heard it at work all the time to I suppose lend credence to data gathering and analysis. "We actually measured these parts and then actually analyzed the data." You can't get data unless you measure the parts and you can't do any analysis without using data. Actually, "actually" has become just a filler word that has lost its meaning because of overuse.

Also high up on my list is "like" as in, "I was like, why would you even think that?" The word "like" is used to indicate some sort of comparison has been made - apples are sweet like sugar - or to indicate some sort of affection. I suppose "I was like" is used to indicate some feeling, but why not just say "I said" or "I spoke slowly".

 

[AG31]

It's an Americanism, I think. In Brit English, you'd always say, "I couldn't care less."

No. There are definitely parts of the U.S. where "couldn't" is the default. Well... now that I think of it... the place that I moved to was, in my world, loaded with academics. So that probably plays into it.

 

[KachinaDoll]

Drives me up the wall when a commentator, usually at the Olympics, says that someone 'medalled'. No they didn't, it's not a bloody verb!

 

[FeralSmile]

This thread does raise an interesting question, though. At what point can we say a word has gained a new meaning? If only a few people are using a word one way, I don't think changes need to be made to the dictionary. The same with slang uses of words that don't last too long. Cool has been around for decades, but rad went out with the 80s.

"Cool" has been around a lot longer than that! Its current slang meaning is at least a century old, but it was morphing into that form well back in the mid-19th century.

Abraham Lincoln, in his Cooper Union speech of 1860, said (emphasis mine):

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, You say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"​

 

[MillieDynamite]

COOL.

"Cool" has been around a lot longer than that! Its current slang meaning is at least a century old, but it was morphing into that form well back in the mid-19th century.

Abraham Lincoln, in his Cooper Union speech of 1860, said (emphasis mine):

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, You say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"​

 

[Abbafan]

(The bit about irony starts at around 1:45.)

Ah yes, the infamous ironic song that doesn't have many ironic things in it. Things that make you go "wouldn't you know it, that figures" are pretty much the opposite of ironic, at least going by the traditional definition.

 

[CyranoJ]

when I encounter the word 'normalcy' I die a little...

??? "Normalcy" is a well-attested usage that goes back to the mid-19th century. I don't get it.

Ah yes, the infamous ironic song that doesn't have many ironic things in it.

I sometimes wonder if Alanis wasn't being extra meta about things. That would be funny.

Anyway, my nominees:

Bad: "For all intensive purposes." I get how it's a mishearing of "for all intents and purposes," that's a minor one but it does bug me.
Worse: Misuse of "[begs/begging] the question." This phrase does not mean "[raises/raising] the question."
Worse yet: Misuse of the word "reactionary." This term means (or meant) "right-wing." It wasn't a term for being "reactive." This one is extra-confusing when political crises or wars erupt and someone takes to the Internet to complain about "reactionary posts on social media," because it's basically gotten to be a flip of a coin as to whether or not they're misusing the term.

With most of these, it's possible to track either how similar sounds misled people, or how the original usage got less intuitive over time and began to be replaced by something "wrong" but more intuitively reasonable to an everyday speaker. Still, it can be a real loss in terms of functional meaning. In the latter two cases above, the correct usages of "beg the question" and "reactionary" convey concepts that aren't easy to replace with other vocabulary.

 

[Abbafan]

Bad: "For all intensive purposes." I get how it's a mishearing of "for all intents and purposes," that's a minor one but it does bug me.

I think could care less is also due to people mishearing "couldn't care less".

 

[Britva415]

I think could care less is also due to people mishearing "couldn't care less".

I don't. They're pretty distinct from each other in sound. It's two separate consonants after the D. "N't" isn't a syllable which has a tendency to get elided in speech.

If anything, if someone were going to slur "couldn't" to drop a syllable or a consonant, it would be the "D" which got dropped. "Cou'n't." Still hard to mis-hear as "could."

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I don't. They're pretty distinct from each other in sound. It's two separate consonants after the D. "N't" isn't a syllable which has a tendency to get elided in speech.

If anything, if someone were going to slur "couldn't" to drop a syllable or a consonant, it would be the "D" which got dropped. "Cou'n't." Still hard to mis-hear as "could."

Yeah. 'Could care less' is short for 'could care less but it would be incredibly difficult' - a rare example of an American idiom being more understated and sarcastic than the UK version.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah. 'Could care less' is short for 'could care less but it would be incredibly difficult' - a rare example of an American idiom being more understated and sarcastic than the UK version.

Interesting. I've never seen that extension before, and I doubt many Americans would have, either (or they'd have mentioned it whenever this one comes up, which it does, at least annually).

 

[Britva415]

I've never seen that extension before, and I doubt many Americans would have, either

Me neither (American speaking)

It doesn't sound like anything anyone ever actually means. It sounds like a backpedal explanation when someone gets caught fucking up the real idiom.

 

[yowser]

Probably with a few exceptions (none of which I can recall at the moment) I intensely dislike words that someone decides should work as a different part of speech: nouns that become verbs (or the opposite) or otherwise get repurposed.

A recent example that makes my fists clench:

impactful.

 

[MillieDynamite]

But, but, but it's in the MW dictionary.

impactful adjective im·pact·ful im-ˈpakt-fəl ˈim-ˌpakt-fəl: having a forceful impact : producing a marked impression
impactful song lyrics
impactful humanitarian efforts
Fashion loves a big expansive gesture, but a small one can be pretty impactful, too.
—Mark Holgate