Commonly Misused Phrases - What They Mean for Our Language

Do misused and bastardized phrases in English put the integrity and life of our language at risk?
They just might.

Language is a flexible vehicle. We use words and phrases to drive our meaning from one mind to another. Certain consistencies in usage are necessary for communication to take place...Yet language is a dynamic, changing thing. It is a living creature. Language grows. Phrases that once had a specific meaning are bastardized until they take on a whole new meaning.

Who can stand in the way of progress? Who would want to stand in the way of progress?

Only when phrases are so misused as to be offensive to a normal person's language sensitivity, only then might a person stand up and say, "Enough already!"

A great many phrases and terms get thrown around on the radio and on television, in conversation and on-line. Often a person encountering the phrase will understand the thrust of a phrase without hearing the exact wording of that phrase.

Context and tone of voice tell us a lot about a phrase's intended meaning. When someone begins to use a phrase whose meaning they have somehow gathered but whose wording has not been completely captured, we get a phrase like this one: "I could care less."

I couldn't care less.

The actual, original phrase in question here is "I couldn't care less" as in I could not care less as in I care so little about the subject at hand that it is impossible for me to care any less. The most straightforward translation of the phrase "I couldn't care less" would be "I don't care at all."

Thus, in conversation a person might deride the comments of a boss: He told me that I need to start coming in on time and that I should stop parking in his space. He'll fire me if I don't. So I'm thinking, go ahead and fire me. I couldn't care less about this job.

This makes sense, right?

"I couldn't care less" has, alas, been bastardized in common speech so that the crucial "not" has been dropped. Now people say, "I could care less," which, taken literally, suggests the opposite of the original phrase. Now the degenerate phrase directly states that there is some care involved with the subject. The phrase says - I care at least enough that it is possible for me to care less. I care a little, at least.

Though the origin of this mis-used phrase is unclear, there are now so many people who mis-use and mess up the phrase that people learn the degenerate version instead of the original one; the one that makes sense.

Another phrase that has been recently bastardized is "literally".

Literally

The term literally refers most literally to denotative or written meaning. A person might say that she has literally been swept of her feet when someone knocks her over with a broom.

The phrase is sensible because brooms literally sweep. She has been "broomed" or swept of her feet in a literal way.

A contrary habit has cropped up recently which finds the phrase literally standing in for "seriously" or functioning simply as emphasis.

Numerous radio programs have featured intelligent, educated individuals spouting lines like this one: With the revolving door in Washington and all the Wall Street characters in the Fed, when the Fed slaps the wrist of the banks it is literally the pot calling the kettle black.

Ah, no, no it's not. This is not a literal situation where a pot has miraculously and magically learned to speak and upon this miraculous occurrence turns its ire on the kettle and says to it, "You, kettle, are black."

Literally here is being mis-used. It is being terribly mis-used in fact because the suggestion of that phrase is directly contrary to the literal meaning of the term literally. The pot is figuratively calling the kettle black. This is what is known as a figure of speech. This is metaphorical language, not literal language.

Such mis-used phrases serve to confuse meaning and make people mad. Do they also aid in the development and dynamics of our language? Perhaps the mis-use of "literally" does, somehow, move the American English language one step up the ladder of evolution...But perhaps this mis-use does the opposite. Mis-using these phrases may instead send us one rung down the ladder toward de-evolution.

If we do not wish to step in the way of progress, should we all begin to mis-use common phrases? Because I have an investment in the English language and rely on it and it alone to convey my ideas to others, I cringe when such a basic term as "literally" is bastardized incomprehensibly.

I could care less. I could care a lot less.