Do women have lower incomes (on average) because of discrimination?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In some seriously rural English dialects there's a confusion between positive and negative terms: e.g. 'I doubt' can mean 'I am certain'.

[angus]

No. It's not an idiomatic expression. It's a gross logical mistake. One that should be systematically pointed out and result in the public shaming of the person who used it.

I think you're right that it is a mistake.  What one means to say is "I couldn't care less."  

I don't think you're right that it is worth arguing about.

Fashions come and go,and it is apparently fashionable to say "I could care less" right now when you mean that you don't care very much.  It's like saying "tons" of stuff, even stuff that isn't measured by weight or mass.   Paper?  Oh, we have tons of paper.  That would be okay (even if you only have a few pounds, because it's simply an exaggeration.)  Sympathy?  Oh, I have tons of sympathy.  That really isn't well formed, because sympathy isn't measured in units of weight.  Nevertheless, it was very, very fashionable in the 90s for people to say that they had "tons" of everything.  Fortunately, it went out of fashion at some point.  An even more annoying 90s fashion was to put the adverb "not" after verbs, rather than immediately before the verb it modifies.  "I'll go with you.  Not!"  "I'd like to see her again.  Not!"  The nerdy one on Friends started it, I think, and it caught on.  That annoying turn of lexicon also went out of fashion a few years ago, thankfully.  I suspect that folks saying that they have the capacity to "care less" when they really mean that they don't have the capacity to "care less" will also go away all by itself so there's no reason to go Don Quixote every time you hear it.

Choose your battles wisely, grasshopper.

[tik 🪀✨]

Yeah, Antonio. You should care less about this, mate. Can't you?

[Gustaf]

No one posted this yet? I guess it's high time. This settles the care less, couldn't care less debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

[Sol]

In some seriously rural English dialects there's a confusion between positive and negative terms: e.g. 'I doubt' can mean 'I am certain'.

Confusion between positives and negatives is actually very common in most languages and dialects, which is part of why double negatives are also so common- they reinforce the negative, which is easily ignored.

And actually, words change their meaning to the opposite all the time. See the etymology of "like"- it originally meant "to be pleasing to X" (like Spanish gustar) but then evolved into its current meaning. Or consider "very", which comes from a word which meant something similar to literally.

[Lief 🗽]

This thread, especially the evolution of discussion topic, is incredibly atlas.txt.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This thread, especially the evolution of discussion topic, is incredibly atlas.txt.

Don't blame me, I just wanted to further establish the ridiculousness of Devin's argument by pointing out his illiteracy.

Why anyone would actually defend the use of the "I could care less" phrase is beyond me.

[courts]

Antonio, people use "literally" to mean "not literally" all the time and that's not a crime against The Language or whatever. I literally don't see why is this any different. Americans can speak however they want.

gotta be honest that trend annoys me too, almost as much as this thread. even as hyperbole its sort of annoying. (of course the answer to op is: yes. you don't have to be a feminist to notice the obvious.)