I Could Care Less
I Could Care Less
[The first three panels are slim compared to the next row below, and they only takes up the same space as the first two of the three panels below this row. Similarly the bottom row, also with three panels, take up less space, although more than the top row. But in this bottom row the empty space in the comic is to the left vs. to the right in the top row.]
[Megan and Ponytail are walking together, Megan in front holds her arms out to the side.] Megan: ...Anyway, I could care less.
[Zoom in on Ponytail holding up her hand (which can atypically be seen), finger pointing up.] Ponytail: I think you mean you couldn't care less. Saying you could care less implies you care at least some amount.
[Back to Megan and Ponytail walking, both have their arms down.] Megan: I dunno.
[The next panel supposed to be to the right of this is missing, instead the comic jumps to the next row. This fourth panel has inverted brightness, with a white Megan floating in a black void, with white text above her.] Megan: We're these unbelievably complicated brains drifting through a void, trying in vain to connect with one another by blindly flinging words out into the darkness.
[Back to Megan and Ponytail walking.] Megan: Every choice of phrasing and spelling and tone and timing carries countless signals and contexts and subtexts and more, Megan: and every listener interprets those signals in their own way. Megan: Language isn't a formal system. Language is glorious chaos.
[Zoom in on Megan's head.] Megan: You can never know for sure what any words will mean to anyone. Megan: All you can do is try to get better at guessing how your words affect people, so you can have a chance of finding the ones that will make them feel something like what you want them to feel. Megan: Everything else is pointless.
[They have stopped walking as Megan holding a hand out has turned around facing Ponytail.] Megan: I assume you're giving me tips on how you interpret words because you want me to feel less alone. Megan: If so, then thank you. Megan: That means a lot.
[Megan and Ponytail resume with their walking.] Megan: But if you're just running my sentences past some mental checklist so you can show off how well you know it,
[Megan and Ponytail continue walking.] Megan: then I could care less.

However, linguists point out that the strict application of logic to an idiom is inappropriate: many expressions seem on the surface to mean the opposite of the meaning they are used to convey (e.g. "head over heels"), and they defend "I could care less" on those grounds . The psychologist Steven Pinker argues in The Language Instinct that the phrase is sarcastic (cf. "Big deal!"), while linguist John Lawler explains it as a "Negative Polarity Item," a phrase that is practically only used in negated form, allowing the explicit negation to be omitted (a pattern often found in French).
In this comic, Megan feels alone because there is unavoidable difference between her understanding of her own words and the listener's interpretation, so while she sees discussion of semantics as being of potentially high social and emotional value, she doesn't think it has objective value. However, ironically, at the end of the comic, the meaning of "I could care less" with regards to Ponytail's behavior is ambiguous: either Megan is brushing off Ponytail's pedantry because she doesn't care about it (she couldn't care less) or she is hurt by Ponytail's focus on the details of her words rather than the emotional cues she should have learned over the course of their relationship (she actually could care less).
The title text refers to another word often used in ways some consider incorrect: "literally" (see 725: Literally ). The sentence is also ambiguous, as it may mean that 'literally' or 'figuratively,' the speaker could or couldn't care less. Further, it implies that Randall considers the argument over whether literally may be properly used to mean 'figuratively' is petty in the same way. Later in 1735: Fashion Police and Grammar Police Ponytail is once again on the side of the grammar police and also in this comic the word literally is used.
Alternatively, it could mean that Megan cares too much about Ponytail's correction, considering her response to it.
In a further alternative, the title text could amount to a self-ironical evaluation on Randall’s part to the effect that he himself might be devoting too much of his time and energy to the meaning of the phrase in question, as evidenced by the comic itself.
The inverse image of Megan floating through space in the fourth panel, as well as her long introspection, is a reference to the five-part "Choices" series, starting at 264: Choices: Part 1 .
[The first three panels are slim compared to the next row below, and they only takes up the same space as the first two of the three panels below this row. Similarly the bottom row, also with three panels, take up less space, although more than the top row. But in this bottom row the empty space in the comic is to the left vs. to the right in the top row.]
[Megan and Ponytail are walking together, Megan in front holds her arms out to the side.] Megan: ...Anyway, I could care less.
[Zoom in on Ponytail holding up her hand (which can atypically be seen), finger pointing up.] Ponytail: I think you mean you couldn't care less. Saying you could care less implies you care at least some amount.
[Back to Megan and Ponytail walking, both have their arms down.] Megan: I dunno.
[The next panel supposed to be to the right of this is missing, instead the comic jumps to the next row. This fourth panel has inverted brightness, with a white Megan floating in a black void, with white text above her.] Megan: We're these unbelievably complicated brains drifting through a void, trying in vain to connect with one another by blindly flinging words out into the darkness.
[Back to Megan and Ponytail walking.] Megan: Every choice of phrasing and spelling and tone and timing carries countless signals and contexts and subtexts and more, Megan: and every listener interprets those signals in their own way. Megan: Language isn't a formal system. Language is glorious chaos.
[Zoom in on Megan's head.] Megan: You can never know for sure what any words will mean to anyone. Megan: All you can do is try to get better at guessing how your words affect people, so you can have a chance of finding the ones that will make them feel something like what you want them to feel. Megan: Everything else is pointless.
[They have stopped walking as Megan holding a hand out has turned around facing Ponytail.] Megan: I assume you're giving me tips on how you interpret words because you want me to feel less alone. Megan: If so, then thank you. Megan: That means a lot.
[Megan and Ponytail resume with their walking.] Megan: But if you're just running my sentences past some mental checklist so you can show off how well you know it,
[Megan and Ponytail continue walking.] Megan: then I could care less.
