You Should Care More

I recently had a telephone conversation with someone who, when asked his viewpoint on some subject, responded, "I could care less." I can't even remember what we were talking about at the time, but as soon as the words left his mouth I immediately began to think about the annoyance that is this commonly misused phrase. "I could care less" literally means that the speaker has the capacity to care less about the subject at hand, thus implying that he or she is not indifferent to the matter and therefore not devoid of emotion regarding the subject. This is not necessarily a negative thing, because there is no absence of care.

Most people, when using the phrase "I could care less" actually mean to say "I couldn't care less," because not being able to care less about something means, more simply put, that they don't care.

William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White list this phrase as one of the expressions commonly misused in The Elements of Style, which is a Bible of sorts to writers and editors alike and should be a required reference tool for anyone who speaks or is learning to speak English. This is what they have to say:

Care less. The dismissive "I couldn't care less" is often used with the shortened "not" mistakenly (and mysteriously) omitted: "I could care less." The error destroys the meaning of the sentence and is careless indeed.

I sincerely hope that this phrase does not become so common that it is adopted as part of the English vernacular. In fact, I'm not sure I could care more.