I Could Care Less in American English

Linguist mark liberman has taken this development and applied it to modern american english. He argued that when there are two negative features in a sentence, the second one can become intensified to the point where the first one becomes unnecessary. So napa isn't really necessary, because the pa part is sufficient to convey negativity. The most compelling part of lieberman's argument is that he applies it to the phrase, i could not care less. Of course, it literally means that i cannot care any less than i do right now. I've reached rock bottom on the care scale.