THIS!

There are more David Mitchell's Soapbox episodes? *delight*

Yes! Just started recently. Glee!

Heh, I watched that yesterday(as I have been on a Mitchell binge this weekend) and I adored it as I loathe "I could care less". It drives me insane.

On alternative/alternate, well, I don't care because I am an American! What I hate is the improper use of "literally". People frequently use it when they mean "virtually" or "almost". Argh. HATE!

I have also been on a Mitchell binge this weekend :D :D :D

I literally could care less, were I in an alternate dimension where I had to hold down the fort. ARGH. ARRRRRGHHHH!

David needs to marry me, and we'll make pedantic obsessive babies together. I hate 'I could care less' - I'd never heard 'hold down the fort' but now I hate that too.

I quite like misuse of 'literally', though, because it's hugely funny so often. My most favouritest recent example was a football team that were 'literally playing out of their skins'. EWWWWWW! XD What's not to love about that?

I've said before that of all my fictional boyfriends, David's the one I want to marry the most.

I used to find misuse of 'literally' amusing. Certainly, I don't mind it for ironic effect. But, no. No! It's annoying when people have no idea it's wrong, wrong, wrong.

I completely agree. I love how he explains it, and also its high (?) similarity to John Cleese's version. There's even graphical reproduction.

Can you please go and comment on Language Log with these thoughts? It's linked here, and discusses this point with David Mitchell's video as inspiration. Annoyingly it also suggests, "Is this apparent trend towards bashing features of colonial language somehow connected with the new Tory-led government?" *headdesk*

FAIL, LLOG. ABSOLUTE FAIL. As two individuals in different governmental circumstances, I can't see how this can possibly be true, and it makes me angry. *hmpph*

The casual misuse of "literally" is annoying, but there are so many delightful examples that I can't get behind a blanket ban. When the Lexus is described on American network news as "literally rocketing out of control" or "literally flying", I confess to a perverse thrill of joy.

(R.I.P. "figuratively" ... we hardly knew ye.)

As far as misuse, I particularly dislike the truncated subordinate clause "as far as [something]". (Just typing that phrase made me grit my teeth.) You almost never hear "as far as [something] goes" or "as far as [something] is concerned" any more. I noticed this one popping up in North America about 15 years ago, and now it's rampant. I'd even be grateful for "As for [something]" - which I suspect is the absentee father of this bastard construction, by the way - but that's every bit as rare.

I'm not convinced this one is purely an Americanism, by the way. I've heard British people using it too.

"I could care less," is sarcasm. It's like being up to your ass in alligators and someone asking how you're doing and your response is "Lovely, just lovely." I don't understand why this phrase gets up so many people's noses.

The abuse of "passion..." Absolutely. It's degrading 'passion' into 'fondness' the way "excellence" has deteriorated into "not really too crappy." And the "excellence" thing was really hyped in academia, where it came to mean "some damned buzzword addict misusing the word."+

Because there are people who literally(heh, and I really do mean literally, not using it in the slang sense) don't understand the difference "I could not care less" and "I could care less". They use the phrases interchangeably. Most of the time when I've heard people say "I could care less" they meant the opposite. That's why I find it annoying and I am not particularly pedantic. I'm sure there people who do know the difference and use "I could care less" sarcastically but that's not been the case when I've heard people employ it.

When it first came to my outraged attention in the '80s I was hearing "*I* could care less" or "Like *I* could care less." It was a sarcastic turn on the original phrase. Emphasis different than you typically hear now. What with the whippersnappers reappropriating it for sincere expressions of disinterest, and all.

There's an article on "could care less" on World Wide Words that brings up a point that has been bothering me WRT many language gripes: class stigma.

Which yellow flag doesn't make pull my hair out any less when I read yet another fanfiction using "could of" or saying "[he] was stood [on the tarmac]". Was he now. Was he indeed.

Everyone hates "could of", but I'm from the West Coast in the U.S., and what everyone says sounds exactly like "could of". And usually fs and vs are pronounced really differently here, so it's hard for me to conceptualize it as "could've". Especially since there's a pause between "could" and "'ve".

You love John Finnemore? Are you familiar with 'Cabin Pressure'? If not, I'll send you details - it absolutely *rocks*.

I sort of only know him from the soapboxes and additional sketch show material. I'm interested, now, though.

I was going to comment on something in that, but then I was completely distracted by the sudden need to track down and watch every DM's Soapbox episode on the internet. This is entirely your fault. :P

(Well, maybe not entirely. I have always been fond of his appearances on QI...)

Bwaaaahahaha! ♥

Hey, at least I didn't also link to tv tropes.

"Could care less" cheeses me off so bad, I can't tell you. I get really prissy about it. "What do you mean, you could care less? That would mean that you do actually care. So you're saying nothing like what you think you're saying."

I've gotten into heated debates about this. Seriously.