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

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Apr 10 03:40:36 UTC 2010


At 9:57 AM +0800 4/10/10, Randy Alexander wrote:
>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.

Yeah, I think even three shits is (at least) one too many to give.

LH

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