another "could(n't) care less" variation

Randy Alexander strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM
Sat Apr 10 01:57:21 UTC 2010


On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> Thanks for the datum, from someone who's been both a hasher and
> rehasher. I've argued in print that squatitives ("He knows/doesn't
> know (diddly-)squat about it") are analogous to "could(n't) care
> less".  And I like to cite "(not) to give two shits" to demonstrate
> that squatitives don't require minimal quantities.
>

But wouldn't you argue that they require non-multal quantities?  I couldn't
imagine anyone saying they (don't) give 75 shits about something.

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
Blogs:
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