"could care less"

Sun May 24 23:32:11 UTC 2009

Semper Fi, Bill!

I had a cousin who was a great rarity, a black Marine who saw combat
in WWII, as opposed to serving as a stevedore or longshoreman.

I have no idea what the Navy term for this
M[ilitary]O[ccupation]S[peciality] (as the jargon was in my day) is,
but the Army is/was totally straightforward: MOS 055 Common Laborer. I
held this MOS when I labored as a fireman, firing furnaces at the
late, unlamented "armpit of the Army" (FWIW, this is the form in which
I first - 1959 - heard this now fairly common expression), Fort
Devens, MA.

One of my best friends has an older brother who, poor guy, spent his
career in one of the lamest specialties known to military man: supply
sergeant.

-Wilson
â€“â€“â€“
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: "could care less"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> but never used interchangeably by Marines.
>
> Bill Palmer
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 5:36 PM
> Subject: Re: "could care less"
>
>
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>> header -----------------------
>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: "could care less"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Yeah, I do remember the discussion WRT "marine" vs. "soldier" =
>> "marine." It seems to me that the conclusion was that only a person
>> who wouldn't have the sense to capitalize "Marine" in any of its
>> military uses, instead of merely as part of the phrase, "_Marine
>> Corps_" / "_Marine Corp_," would be dumb enough to refer to a marine
>> as a "soldier." But, as its fans know, NCIS features a group commanded
>> by an ex-jarhead and whose military characters are 99.44% marines.
>> Nevertheless, "marine" and "soldier" are used pretty much
>> interchangeably, at least by the show's writers and actors.
>>
>> -Wilson
>> Ã¢?"Ã¢?"Ã¢?"
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -----
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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>>> Sender: Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster: Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject: Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Re: "could care less"
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Some of the confusion about "brigs" and "stockades," along with "DIs" and
>>> "drill sergeants" and some similar items must come from the mere
>>> existence
>>> of the Marine Corps as a kind of halfway point between navy and army
>>> patoises.
>>>
>>> Whether a Marine "is" a soldier has been discussed here before. Ã‚ If I
>>> neglected to cite Bill Clinton then, I'll do it now: "It depends on what
>>> yo=
>>> u
>>> mean by 'is.'"
>>>
>>> JL
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
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>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster: Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>>> Subject: Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Â Ã‚ Re: "could care less"
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>>> ------
>>>>
>>>> FWIW, the first person that I ever heard use "I could care less,"
>>>> after I had been in training perhaps four hours, was our black
>>>> Puerto-Rican barracks sergeant, who had a *very* thick accent. I
>>>> thought first that he merely lacked sufficient command of English to
>>>> realize that he had misspoken. But, within a day or so, it became
>>>> clear that *all* members of the cadre used the phrase minus the
>>>> negation hundreds of times a day each. By contrast, the phrase
>>>> practically doesn't occur "on civvy street" (AFAICR, this was a
>>>> WWII-ish expression, already obsolete by the time of my time) any more
>>>> often than Army "stockade" is correctly used in place of Navy "brig."
>>>> I once saw a reference in the NYT to the "brig" at Fort Leavenworth.
>>>> Would the NYT refer to Broadway as "Hollywood Boulevard"?!
>>>>
>>>> Well, "brig" is at least an improvement over the once *very* popular
>>>> "guardhouse." Until I was actually on guard duty for the first time -
>>>> in the middle of a thunderstorm, scared shitless that my individual
>>>> weapon, muzzle pointed skyward at right shoulder, arms! would call
>>>> down the lightning from the clouds - I had no idea that a "guardhouse"
>>>> was literally a structure in which guards were housed - when not
>>>> actively engaged in taking charge of their posts and and all other
>>>> military property in view - and not a military jail or prison, for
>>>> which "stockade" is the proper term in military jargon.
>>>>
>>>> -Wilson
>>>> =96=96=96
>>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>> -----
>>>> -Mark Twain
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>>> > Sender: =C2 Ã‚ =C2 Ã‚ =C2 Ã‚ American Dialect Society
>>>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=
>>>>
>>>> > Poster: =C2 Ã‚ =C2 Ã‚ =C2 Ã‚ Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>>>> > Subject: =C2 Ã‚ =C2 Ã‚ =C2 Re: "could care less"
>>>> >
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>>> ------
>>>> >
>>>> > On May 24, 2009, at 8:04 AM, i wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Wilson's reports having first heard it used in the Army in the late
>>>> >> '50s, and also that none of the recruits in his training company had
>>>> >> heard it before (so that there was much discussion about in the
>>>> >> barracks). =C2 so it was new *for them* (though it became routine
>>>> >> "military jargon" for them). =C2 but of course others were using
>>>> >> it --
>>>> >> after all, the uses they first heard came from *somewhere*.
>>>> >
>>>> > this is a partial mis-report (i should never rely on my memory).
>>>> > wilson said it was new to *the recruits*, but that for *seasoned
>>>> > soldiers*, it was routinely used as "military jargon".
>>>> >
>>>> > arnold
>>>> >
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>>>> >
>>>>
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