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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Lawrence who wrote (395)	1/3/1998 5:18:00 PM
From: Janice Shell	Respond to of 4711

David-- Well there you are. Even mothers don't know everything. More on the vexed "I could care less" question: "could care less" The idiom "couldn't care less", meaning "doesn't care at all" (the meaning in full is "cares so little that he couldn't possibly care less"), originated in Britain around 1940. "Could care less", which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around 1960. We get disputes about whether the latter was originally a mis-hearing of the former; whether it was originally ironic; or whether it arose from uses where the negative element was separated from "could" ("None of these writers could care less...") Meaning- saving elaborations have also been suggested; e.g., "As if I could care less!"; "I could care less, but I'd have to try"; "If I cared even one iota -- which I don't --, then I could care less." An earlier transition in which "not" was dropped was the one that gave us "but" in the sense of "only". "I will not say but one word", where "but" meant "(anything) except", became "I will say but one word." Other idioms that say the opposite of what they mean include: "head over heels" (which could mean turning cartwheels, i.e. "head over heels over head over heels", but is also used to mean "upside-down", i.e. "heels over head"); "Don't sneeze more than you can help", (meaning "more than you cannot help"; "help" here means "prevent"); "It's hard to open, much less acknowledge, the letters" (where "less" means "harder", i.e. "more"); "I shouldn't wonder if it didn't rain"; "I miss not seeing you"; and "I turned my life around 360 degrees" -- not to mention undisputedly ironic phrases like "fat chance", "Thanks a lot", and "I should worry". Janice

To: David Lawrence who wrote (395)	1/3/1998 5:52:00 PM
From: Jack Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4711

David, I think there are two eating styles. In America, the food is cut, the knife set aside, the fork switched to the dominant hand, and the food eaten as the non-dominant hand rests in the lap. In Europe, they do not change hands, using the knife to push food onto the non-dominant hand, eating it, and all the while both hands remain above the table height. I like the European style and have used it most of my life, but my wife thinks it's barbaric. Jack