"Jive" for "Jibe"

[LondonJohn]

I agree with this, but infer and imply are two useful words right now that mean different things. I think a movement of the language that eliminates the distinction is not desirable.

Often times the movement of the English language is toward changes that eliminate unnecessary distinctions and my inner pedantic jerk is less antagonized by those.

True. Language is, after all, not set in stone (the Ten Commandments notwithstanding ). Its primary purpose is to enable one person to communicate thoughts, ideas or emotions to others. So long as the sender and the receiver both understand what the language intends to convey, the actual language is in and of itself unimportant.

That said, it still does grate a little when you hear misuse. Another one which has seemingly passed into common currency is "laxadaisical" instead of "lackadaisical" - I presume this mistake is made because people assume it must be connected to "lax", since both words imply (or should that be "infer"? ) laziness or apathy.

Here's an amusing sketch from Mitchell & Webb which touches upon this whole area. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ0l_vPyUmg

 

[LondonJohn]

Yes, I've heard it enough that I thought it was the correct usage myself. I also hear "mine as well" instead of "might as well" and "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less."

Ah, but the US version of the latter phrase actually is "I could care less". I've long wondered how this came to pass - after all, the US form of the phrase makes no logical sense whatsoever! Since the phrase is intended to convey the impression that one doesn't care at all, it only makes logical sense to say "I couldn't case less". In other words, "It's impossible for me to care less about anything than I care about this particular issue, which tells you that I don't care at all about this particular issue".

By contrast, to say "I could care less" has no logical implication with regard to how little one cares about the subject under discussion - indeed, if anything, it tends to imply that one cares rather a lot about it (since the statement indicates that it would be possible to care less). Utterly irrational and illogical!

 

[brodski]

Utterly irrational and illogical!

Idioms don't have to make sense as such, they still convey meaning. Idioms are often generated through ironic reversal- "cheap at half the price" anyone?

How about the current meaning of bully? Nice? Tart (as applied to a women)?
All totally irrational and illogical yet all convey meaning perfectly clearly.

 

[MatildaGage]

I always thought it was jive. Thx for pointing this out.

I don't like "butt naked" or "balls to the wall" (the latter, when used to refer to genitalia).

 

[bigred]

The last ten years or so, I have been hearing people I know use the word "Jive" in place of "Jibe" with increasing frequency.

Has anyone else seen this, or is it just us hicks here in the mid-west U.S.A.?

No, there are stupid people everywhere.

Which brings me to why you posted this in this forum.

Honestly, if that's the worst spoken gaffe you're encountering, your "circle of people" are ahead of the curve.

 

[TjW]

Is anyone else bothered by "congradulations"? The first time I saw it on a graduation greeting card, I thought it was mildly clever.
Seeing it used as the normal spelling? Not so much.

 

[Rat]

Honestly, if that's the worst spoken gaffe you're encountering, your "circle of people" are ahead of the curve.

Your circle of people is ahead.... Circle is singular, regardless, or indeed irregardless, of what it's a circle of.*

*Yes, I know this is moot, as with all such collections of things.

 

[brodski]

I don't like "butt naked" .

It is interesting to contrast butt naked with I could care less. Butt naked makes sense as a phrase regardless of whether it is an idiom or not, buck naked only makes sense idiomatically (with some racist undertones to boot). I could care less does not make sense unless it is used idiomatically. So, why the derision for those that use the idiomatic form of could/couldn't care less and for those that use the form of butt/buck naked which does not need to be interpreted idiomatically?

 

[slingblade]

No, there are stupid people everywhere.

Which brings me to why you posted this in this forum.

Honestly, if that's the worst spoken gaffe you're encountering, your "circle of people" are ahead of the curve.

Says the guy who has, so far, kvetched on some 493 assorted matters of personal taste that annoy no one but him.

 

[Rat]

...So, why the derision for those that use the idiomatic form of could/couldn't care less and for those that use the form of butt/buck naked which does not need to be interpreted idiomatically?

Because it makes it more difficult to learn the rules, thus allowing those of us who know how to speak properly to continue mocking those lesser beings who cannot remember them all.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Ah, but the US version of the latter phrase actually is "I could care less". I've long wondered how this came to pass - after all, the US form of the phrase makes no logical sense whatsoever! Since the phrase is intended to convey the impression that one doesn't care at all, it only makes logical sense to say "I couldn't case less". In other words, "It's impossible for me to care less about anything than I care about this particular issue, which tells you that I don't care at all about this particular issue".

By contrast, to say "I could care less" has no logical implication with regard to how little one cares about the subject under discussion - indeed, if anything, it tends to imply that one cares rather a lot about it (since the statement indicates that it would be possible to care less). Utterly irrational and illogical!

I'm not sure what you meant by this, but I don't think it's correct. I say "couldn't care less" and so do most people I know.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm not sure what you meant by this, but I don't think it's correct. I say "couldn't care less" and so do most people I know.

Really?! And you're a US native? May I then congratulate you on your erudition

I've come into contact with many US residents both in the US and elsewhere (I'm English, but with a cosmopolitan upbringing and work life), through both work and general friendship, and I can only ever remember them saying "I could care less" rather than "I couldn't care less" to convey their lack of interest in a given subject.

There are a few other more subtle "Americanisms" that have caught my eye over the years. They include the sometime elimination of "of" after "couple" (e.g. "I had a couple beers", rather than "I had a couple of beers"). To use "couple" without "of" sounds very strange to a UK-English speaker.

One other difference - which I think is far more subtle, is that way that American English uses "smells like" to mean something that UK-English speakers have two separate terms for. In UK-English, "smells like" strictly means that something has a smell that is evocative of something else, but that the "something else" isn't the source of the smell. In other words, if a UK-English speaker says "This blanket smells like pee", they don't mean that it actually has been peed upon - the word choice strictly implies that the blanket's smell resembles that of pee, but that the actual cause of the smell is non-specific. In UK-English, one would say "This blanket smells of pee" to convey the impression that it has probably been peed upon.

That's one reason why so many UK-English speakers failed to understand the meaning of the Nirvana song title "Smells like Teen Spirit" (apart from the deodorant brand "Teen Spirit" not being on sale in the UK). The title comes from someone writing graffiti saying "Kurt Cobain smells like Teen Spirit" as a reference to his physical relationship with his then girlfriend who used Teen Spirit deodorant. In UK-English, we would have said "Kurt Cobain smells of Teen Spirit", and the song would have been different

PS: All the talk of peeing on blankets has left me wanting to watch The Big Lebowski again

 

[jhunter1163]

I love the Java Jibe, and it loves me.

My pet peeves (ones that I have been seeing much more lately) are "reign in" in place of "rein in" and the chronic misspelling "minuscule" for "miniscule".

Argh.

 

[Rat]

I love the Java Jibe, and it loves me.

My pet peeves (ones that I have been seeing much more lately) are "reign in" in place of "rein in" and the chronic misspelling "minuscule" for "miniscule".

Argh.

The other way around, shurely?

 

[davefoc]

OK, more survey results, this time from my graduate student daughter.

It's "jives with". Gibes are insults. She agrees with her mother, people that say "gibes with" are stupid.

On the "couldn't care less" controversy, she explained that language evolves and expressions can sometimes lose the logic of the initial expression as they evolve. Could care less is an example of that in her view and "could care less" is the normal form of the expression. So her American view seems to be consistent with LondonJohn's observation on this.

By the way does anybody have any thoughts on the origin of "jibes with" as an expression indicating correlation.

 

[brodski]

By the way does anybody have any thoughts on the origin of "jibes with" as an expression indicating correlation.

I got around to looking it up, turns out that it's a mishearing of "chime" became standardised during the Regency period, which makes this thread pretty amusing.

 

[SezMe]

..."I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less."

For example from this very thread:

<snip>But I'm sure I could care less. Things like this come down the pipe all the time.

I see and hear this error often. It gets repeated on these very fora about monthly.

 

[jhunter1163]

The other way around, shurely?

Um, no. No. A thousand times no. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

 

[Rat]

Is it also majiscule?

Indeed, if the reasoning is pronunciation, it's presumably 'minite' as well, at least for the unit of time.

 

[SezMe]

Ah, but the US version of the latter phrase actually is "I could care less".

I'm joining Elizabeth I on this matter. There is no such thing as a "US version" but there are people who don't know how to turn a phrase but they're not uniquely Americans.