I don’t think Krystal Ball likes me anymore.  Well, in truth, she doesn’t know me.  I’ve sent her a couple of complimentary tweets and she’s sent me gracious thank yous.  But most of our “relationship” comes from my watching her co-host The Cycle on MSNBC.

I crossed the line when I couldn’t contain myself after she offered up one of my biggest verbal pet peeves not once but twice.  I tried, I swear I tried.  I know no one likes to be corrected and that it’s a rude thing to do.  Sometimes I can’t help myself.  

What pushed me over the edge?  Four words:  “I could care less.”

Please tell me you see the problem.  No, not with me.  With Krystal.

Yes, I’m a Grammar Nazi. I’m a lousy mathematician and I’m not great building things, but I’m damned good at English.  (You can tell by the way I included the “ed” on the end of “damned.”)  I love learning new words and can get a little obsessive.  In the old days, I made one of the quick information librarians in Seattle look up the words that followed primary, secondary and tertiary just because I thought it would be cool to know them.  And I doubt any of you have ever had to go to nonary or denary, either.

I used to get really wound up whenever I heard someone come up with a ridiculous misuse of the language.  I thought of myself as some sort of standard-bearer.  But over time I came to grips with two things:  1) language evolves, so whatever’s the norm now may not be in 20 years, and 2) I’m not perfect.  I make plenty of mistakes myself.

Another thing is that I haven’t found a reason why I love some language changes while others drive me nuts.  When I was in high school, no one would have said “That is SO not funny.”  But I pepper my conversation with “so nots” and never think twice about it.  Conversely, whenever I hear someone use “waitress” as a verb (e.g., “I waitressed while I was going to school.”) makes me want to punch something.  So I’ve settled on a few expressions that just don’t make sense in the new – some would say lazy – form.

One of these is “I could care less.”  Think about it and you’ll realize that it means nothing.  You can always care less.  If you love something, you could care less about it.  If you don’t like it very much, you could care less.  If you hate it, you might still be able to care less about it.  You can care less until you reach that final point where you’ve really reached the end and have no more care to give it.  At that point, you’d say the correct thing:  I couldn’t care less.  Now you’re saying something.  It’s an absolute and it means something.

I will suffer through your “waitressing.”  I will keep silent while you say “damn.”  And I will smile while you pummel me with “prys,” “prollys,” and “problys” instead of good, solid “probablys.”  Just please, please, please just give me a little “couldn’t” in return.

Clearly I could care less about this, but I probably couldn’t care more.

You can think about that while you’re waiting tables.  Or waitressing, if you insist.