Dear America... | David Mitchell's SoapBox

David Mitchell's Soapbox · 3.9M views · 2010-05-20 · 3:24

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Overview

A three-minute David Mitchell's Soapbox rant addressed to Americans about the phrase "could care less", arguing it means the opposite of what speakers intend. Delivered as dry British comic commentary on language usage.

On Hacker News

HN uses it as the go-to link, often jokingly, whenever someone writes "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less".

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2010–2025

Topics

Language & linguistics Stand-up & sketch comedy

What people said

switch007 · 2025-04 · Joke / meme
I "could" care less about verbal flubs ;) Let David Mitchell explain, in a totally non sarcastic way [VIDEO]
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wlll · 2024-03 · Joke / meme
> The majority of the world doesn't speak English And yet here we are. To paraphrase David Mitchell ( [VIDEO] ), the problem is not so much the prevelance of American English, which in a lot of situations makes sense. eg. "sidewalk" makes a lot of sense, perhaps more, than "pavement" for the place that a pedestrian walks at the side of a road. "Parking lot" for a lot of land that is reserved for parking etc. The issue is that "could care less" means the opposite of what people intend them to mean, and they're just expecting the people listening to interpret what they mean.
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FooBarBizBazz · 2022-07 · Joke / meme
Well, he is saying that he cares about it. Accidentally, by mangling an idiom, but still. I think David Mitchell has a thing about this? [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by David Mitchell's Soapbox, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

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