When I was in high school, "I couldn’t care less" meant, well, the obvious.  It was the ultimate in "I don’t care."  It was a snide way of asserting indifference.  (Why assert supposed indifference if you truly are indifferent?  That was a different matter…  ;))

Anyway, since then, I’ve come across a number of people who say "I could care less" to mean "I don’t care."  I’ve assumed it’s a perversion of "I couldn’t care less," but I can’t figure out how people could confuse the expressions, as the plain meanings are obvious.  "I could care less" means "I do care," but is used to mean "I don’t."

Has anyone else come across this phenomenon?  And can anyone proffer an explanation?

I have run into this expression also.  The only thing I can figure is that it is a ‘feature’ of human communication that we do not replicate what we’ve heard exactly as we heard it.

Remember the old game ‘gossip’?

One expression that, in my opinion, is a perfect example: "the proof is in the pudding".  From what I’ve read of this expression, it started out life as "the proof of the pudding is in the mix".

English—at least American English—has a tendency toward shortening words and phrases.  I think this is just another example.

What is the old game "gossip"?  Is that where you sit in a circle and whisper a sentence in one person’s ear and it comes out totally different at the end?

American English (at least slang English) also has a tendency to make the definitions of the word their opposite, like "bad," "phat," etc.

(Someone once told me I had a "phat tattoo" and I almost hurled.)

Actually I think he said "Phat tat," which was even worse for some reason.

[quote author=tcward link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#1 date=11/14/02 at 11:47:02]
One expression that, in my opinion, is a perfect example: "the proof is in the pudding".  From what I’ve read of this expression, it started out life as "the proof of the pudding is in the mix".

How’s that?  (That "the proof of the pudding" is "in the mix?")

As for "I could care less,"  I wonder about the transformation that everyone is suggesting… it seems that the meanings of the words "could" and "care" are just too clear to get confused…    I thought "I couldn’t care less" was a statement, not a figure of speech.

I think you’re right.

(from RH)

figure of speech: Rhet.  any expressive use of language, as a metaphor, simile, personification, or antithesis, in which words are used in other than their literal sense, or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect.

It’s a peculiarly American usage, to the extent that I’ve seen it as an entry in one of those lists of American-to-British "translations":

American                                British
I could care less = I couldn’t care less

I’m interested to hear that you do use the other version, too - up to now I’d assumed that "I could care less" was all that was in use in the US.

Grant

Another American-to-British translation - "quite," which here means "a lot" and, from what I remember being in London, means "slightly" or "a little."  Is this true?

What is the old game "gossip"?  Is that where you sit in a circle and whisper a sentence in one person’s ear and it comes out totally different at the end?

We call that game Chinese Whispers.

So you play it in New Zealand too?  I think we called it "telephone."  It usually resulted in some pre-adolescent hilarity surrounding some bad words.

[quote author=dgale link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#6 date=11/16/02 at 00:56:24]Another American-to-British translation - "quite," which here means "a lot" and, from what I remember being in London, means "slightly" or "a little."  Is this true?

Both usages are current in British English, though the use as an intensifier would probably be considered mildly "posh".
The interpretation depends on context and intonation:
"That was quite delightful, thank you." (That was highly delightful.)
"Well, that was quite nice ..." (That was so-so.)

Grant

Which one is used as an intensifier?  The so-so meaning or the delightful one?  (Is the "posh" one the intensifier?)

[quote author=dgale link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#10 date=11/16/02 at 09:39:21]Which one is used as an intensifier?  The so-so meaning or the delightful one?  (Is the "posh" one the intensifier?)

Oops. Are we using "intensifier" in different ways? To me the intensifier is the usage that makes the meaning more intense: the American, "quite delightful", rather posh British usage.
The other version dilutes the meaning: "quite nice" isn’t as nice as just plain "nice" is.

Grant

[quote author=dgale link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#2 date=11/15/02 at 12:39:20](Someone once told me I had a "phat tattoo" and I almost hurled.)

Actually I think he said "Phat tat," which was even worse for some reason.

;D

[quote author=granthutchison link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#5 date=11/15/02 at 21:27:44]I’m interested to hear that you do use the other version, too - up to now I’d assumed that "I could care less" was all that was in use in the US.

I’m fairly certain I’ve heard both here in Southern California. (At least I suspect I shall be using "I couldn’t care less" in the future.) At the very least, I suspect that a translation would be absolutely unnecessary if "I couldn’t care less" was used here.

[quote author=granthutchison link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#11 date=11/16/02 at 10:01:06]
The other version dilutes the meaning: "quite nice" isn’t as nice as just plain "nice" is.

1) I’d always thought that nice was itself a diluted term.  The quite was intensifying the blandness of nice.  

Hey, maybe it’s an ironic quite—one means to say it wasn’t really nice, but stresses the niceness to imply that it wasn’t really so.  Or maybe that’s at least how quite started out meaning "a lot" and ended up meaning "a little."

2) I’m still waiting to hear how the proof of the pudding is in the mix.

3) My husband suggested that "I could care less" may actually be a statement of even less caring than "I couldn’t care less" in this manner:  not only don’t I care very much, but even though I could care less, I don’t even care enough to try.  

[quote author=tamisaac link=board=idiom;num=1037238816;start=0#14 date=11/16/02 at 20:54:29]1) I’d always thought that nice was itself a diluted term.

It’s still a mildly positive thing to say, though: there’s a hierarchy of very nice being better than nice being better than not so nice. So an intensifier, like very, makes the nice nicer. Whereas quite,  in this usage, was making the nice less nice - to quote the OED: merely "rather, to a moderate degree [or] fairly" nice.

Grant