Dumbass Sayings: “I Couldn’t Care Less”

When you’re going around work telling people how you just got engaged some people scoff at you and Janet rolls her eyes back to the back of her head and says “Oh my god I couldn’t care less!” That phrase always tickled me as silly. So if there was something you cared about a lot like the results of your child’s blood test then you would say “I could definitely care less about that.”? No that doesn’t really work. That’s not how words work. That would make it sound like you didn’t care. So if you’re saying “I couldn’t care less” then that’s the opposite and should then mean the opposite. This is confusing, but let’s actually think about what “I couldn’t care less” means. There’s always one level below caring the least possible amount and that is is caring 0 or not caring at all (anti-caring). If you’re adjusting the level that you care about something then let’s say you’re working on a scale of 1 and 100 (1 being least possible caring and 100 being extremely vested interested). Now, 0 is not on that scale because it implies complete indifference which is less than the least amount of caring (the least is valued at 1 on the care meter). So instead of saying “I couldn’t care less” the only way to make that sentiment truthful is to not even acknowledge what the person said and be completely indifferent to it. By acknowledging them and invoking your personal care meter exhibiting the setting as 1, the lowest setting, you are thereby admitting that you actually could care less which would be 0 (anti-caring), but you’re not truly at 0 if you chose to talk about it. Talking about it would presume the the penultimate minimal amount of caring.

If you give someone the finger and say "I couldn't care less" then obviously you can since you cared enough to extend your finger.