[ExI] You know what?

[Lee Corbin]

Damien wrote

> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 9:39 PM
> Lee wrote:
> 
>> are people really so mindless that they can be
>> taken over by a meme without any awareness?
> 
> Well, blimey, Lee, that's how memes *work*.

Sure, some memes work that way (some mannerisms
for example), but most memes discussed generally
(tunes, religous memes, clothing fashions, and so on)
are quite consciously acquired.

And I *do* think that picking up cute phrases falls into
that category. I submit that people are entirely aware of
their adoption of a new meme, in accordance with a
mechanism that PJ describes quite succinctly in an
upcoming email.

> > In the late eighties, those eager to use the latest verbal fashion
> > found themselves saying "I could care less" to mean "I couldn't
> > care less", as though seeking to emulate some kind of character
> > who wasn't big on verbal distinctions.  Then in the early 90's,
> > "say what!?" became the rage for a year or two.
> 
> I suspect the former usage is an appropriation from the black 
> underclass, as certainly the latter is.

It would interest me to know how you know that. I had no idea.
Now it is a very interesting general point that (I contend) while
the lower classes used to emulate the upper ones, beginning in
the 1970s the reverse is true.

> Steve Pinker, to my annoyance, defends "could care less" against
> (ahem) self-righteous language poh-leece such as my good self.

My own annoyance is mostly that this phrase is not logical (i.e.
violates the logic wherein if one could not care less, then one
is asserting that he's already at the minimum of interest), but it's
also from the disgust I have for those who slavishly imitate.

> My working hypothesis is that the phrase is derived from swallowing
> the "n't"--rather as the "rua" is elided in the month "Feb-you-ree"
> (which is now authorized in some dictionaries). If I'm right, I'd expect
> it to be said with this stress: "Ah COULD care less" rather than
> "Ah could care LESS" or "Ah could CARE less." Is it?

I concur with Randall:  alas for your conjecture, the accent falls on the
last syllable (if not the first, "Ah").

> Speaking of such things:
> 
> Pursuing my grasp of teen idiom on TV by watching Terminator for 
> telly teens and tots (and quite enjoying it), I noted a 2007-era 
> schoolgrrl pissed off by a grrl Terminatrix snarling in a marked and 
> menacing manner: "Bitch whore much?"

That's what we want, the telly teens learning what's important.

Lee

> Jeez, it's like being flung into Phil Dick's future.