"so don't I"

[Mark A Mandel]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

#Whereas "I could care less" is transparent, even out of context (to most of
#us anyway)

Transparent only if the irony is evident or otherwise understood. I have
always understood this idiom as ultimately derived from "As if I could
care less" (by deletion), or "I couldn't care less" (by ironic
negation). The latter source may be the only reconstructable one for
speakers who didn't grow up with Yiddish-influenced NYC English.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large