Get it right, please!
July 6, 2004
Dear friends, I bring to you one of the most glaring errors in English that, on every instance, grates at me like biting on tinfoil: “I could care less.”
If you could care less about something, that means you do care about such a thing, and it is wishful of you to say that you could care less. Because at this point you care.
Now, if you don’t care at all about something, then you cannot care any less than you do now. So you say: “I couldn’t care less.”
Class dismissed.
One Comment to Get it right, please!
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ROFL, ofj! As an editor, I thoroughly empathize.
My least-favorite peeve is the substitution of “and” for “to”: One does not get in the car and drive to the store, but one does get in the car to drive to the store. Yo–people–a simple way to remember this usage is to substitute “or” for “and”–if the sentence still makes sense use “and,” if not use “or.” In the same vein, one does not try and get up, but one does try to get up. Never use “and” after “try” unless you are saying “try and try again,” although that would be better phrased as “try, then try again.”