A Grammatical Note

In the context of the Internet, there are several traditional debates for exposing people who Did Not Do The Research. Among these are:

• An airplane is located on a conveyor belt. This conveyor moves backward at exactly the same speed as the plane moves forward. Will the plane be able to take off? (It will.)
• Does 0.999... = 1? (It does.)
• Should the expression "I could care less" be replaced by "I couldn't care less" since the latter is obviously correct?

The last expression is the one we concern ourselves with here. In fact, both are correct, since both take advantage of different aspects of language in order to convey the intended meaning. However, since the literal meaning of "I could care less" (1) is discordant with its intended meaning, certain elements argue that (1) is incorrect.

A very fundamental element of humor is irony. Perhaps the most immediately effective form of irony is sarcasm--famously referred to by Oscar Wilde as "the lowest form of wit" (Wilde can suck the figurative "it"). Sarcasm could be applied to a statement by putting a spoken emphasis on a particular word in order to signify that, in fact, the opposite is what the speaker actally thinks. Alternatively, exaggerated emphasis may be placed on one word or multiple words in order to negate the entire statement's face value. 

Both of these senses concern us. When spoken, (1) sounds like "I could care less". In the first case, we can take the opposite of care--not care--and substitute into (1), which then reduces to (2). In the second case, we negate the entire statement by reversing the verb; this, in turn, reduces to (2). We have demonstrated that the two statements are identical in meaning.

Then, what if no emphasis is placed on any word in (1)? Our elements in question would say that  it follows that the phrase is parsed literally, given that there is no indication that sarcasm is present. This claim is disproved by the existence and appreciation of deadpan humor. Delivery notwithstanding, (1) was most likely introduced with the emphasis on particular words; it exists now only as a piece of culture--by definition a shared territory of meaning--with the understanding that this original meaning remains the current meaning. The delivery of (1) is therefore irrelevant to its being understood with the proper, and intended, meaning.

To wit, anyone who claims (2) is superior to (1)--or that (1) is wrong--is a moron.