In a scenario where someone expresses the view that they have no interest in a particular issue……
“I could care less” v “I couldn’t care less”
Oft used. Both can’t be right, can they?
Seconds out !! 
That’s the correct one. Though the dictionary now treats both as being correct.
Could is a modern Americanised idiom/euphemism that grammatically just doesn’t make sense to me (and presumably to you). But it’s correct too.
Both are right. 
)
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That’ll do me fine. 
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This is the one I use.
If I have no interest in something, then I could not care less is factually accurate.
“I could care less” means that your interest is not zero, as there is room for manoeuvre.
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Exactly !! 
Thankyou. 
Nor me - I’m just not having it
I don’t know why I got all jiggy over this (actually I do - it’s cropped up twice in one episode of West Wing tonight).
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I couldn’t care less.
Having said that, I guess, if pushed, I could care less.
But I’m not pushed at the moment, so I couldn’t care less.
Hope that settles it.
I’m taking a punt and regarding your words as with us.
For no other reason than to be a contrarian and spice things up, I’m embracing my inner American* and joining #TeamCould! 
*I don’t even know if it’s an americanism. It’s just the far more popular idiom among those friends and family.
And this was going so well, too 
We don’t seem to have too many polls on here, so let’s poll it!
In a scenario where someone expresses the view that they have no interest in a particular issue, which is correct?
- I could care less
- I couldn’t care less
- Both are correct
0
voters
It kinda reminds me how so many brits seem to use lend when they mean borrow. Or how some (one*) banks use frauded when they mean defrauded.
*Monzo. Because of course it’s Monzo.
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You raise, indeed, a further source of irritation. In this case, though, there’s only one correct use. 
(I now recall examples of folk making the same mistake - but in reverse )
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But language is fluid and it constantly evolves. So when the uneducated start using words wrong, it will eventually become common and even replace the normal form of a word.
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Indeed. “We was” and “mischeevious” spring to mind!
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Ouch !! 
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And don’t get me started on the “could of” and “would of” folk 
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And there it is !!
Wednesday ruined
You do pick some great topics for threads though, Graham
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This, and the grocer’s apostrophe make me want to scream. I can’t think of anything more frustrating. They give me the sort of nails on chalkboard feeling, can’t quite describe it
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I understand the feeling exactly!
I’m punctilious about grammar and spelling, Americanisms are very noticeable to me and actually quite distracting. I just can’t help but register them, and it takes my focus away from what the text is about slightly.
This is a great thread, I agree. We are lucky to have @Graham!
I couldn’t care less is the only correct option as far as I’m concerned. It means, literally, that you could not possibly be less concerned about something, so it is therefore very insignificant to you. It makes comeplete sense. Could care less, of course, means the opposite - showing that you could, in fact, care less and therefore taken literally it may even imply that the thing was important to you (although even I will concede that it’s so regularly used now, especially by Americans it seems, that you have to treat it as a synonym for couldn’t care less instead). You would never catch me using it for that meaning though. In fact, due to the misuse being the more common use, I now wouldn’t use it at all as either usage would be unclear.
I don’t really get what you mean by this. Surely somebody can lend you something which you are then borrowing as a result?
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Around here it’s the opposite, people talk about “borrowing x to someone” when they mean they lent it.
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