Dear America... | David Mitchell's SoapBox
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN uses it as the go-to link, often jokingly, whenever someone writes "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less".
What it is
A three-minute David Mitchell's Soapbox rant addressed to Americans about the phrase "could care less", arguing it means the opposite of what speakers intend. Delivered as dry British comic commentary on language usage.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2010 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Cites RiderOfGiraffes · 2011-03 · on “From Redmond with Love - IE team sends cake for FF4”
> I could care less, ... I don't want to be "that guy" and I'm not trying to be a grammar Nazi. I know this is now an idiom in the USA, and therefore it doesn't have to make sense. However ... I've now heard it said, in four different countries, that this phrase makes the speaker sound like an idiot. I know it's now just "the norm" in the USA, but I wanted to let people here know that saying this makes a bad impression. If you don't care how you sound to non USAians then don't bother. But if you're wondering what I'm talking about, David Mitchell does an excellent job of explaining "I couldn't care less" [this video] I now return you to your normal programming.
Cites SideburnsOfDoom · 2012-09 · on “The Britishisation of American English”
But "I could care less" is a perfectly grammatical sentence, which has a semantic meaning, which, as David Mitchell explains at comic length, is the opposite of what the speaker means to say. [this video]
Cites markdown · 2015-01 · on “I Owe It All to Community College”
I think we agree with each other. Words like "ain't" entering the common lexicon (usually in spoken english) is fine by me ie. Words formed out of contractions of other words/phrases, or entirely new inventions. What I mostly get riled up about are words or phrases that are just plain wrong, but that have been used so widely that some dictionaries have accepted them as correct. Eg: [this video]
Cites shabble · 2015-06 · on “Dear Paul”
In the simplest case, the thing referred to is 'a think', and they're entirely equivalent :) I'd argue that this is more of an Eggcorn[1] than a malapropism, unlike your second example. "The proof is in the pudding", or the classic "Could care less"[2] are the two worst offenders I can think of immediately. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]