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

[Ben Zimmer]

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:40 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> At 9:57 AM +0800 4/10/10, Randy Alexander wrote:
> >On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Laurence Horn 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.

I was reminded of this old thread upon reading The Entire Facebook
Terms of Service in Bro Speak":

http://slacktory.com/2011/08/entire-facebook-terms-of-service-in-bro-speak/
"We give lots of fucks about your privacy, so we wrote this."

(I was wary of googling "give|gives|giving lots of fucks", but the
results are mostly SFW.)

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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