WARNING: This post contains a lot of swearwords. If that offends you, click here.

Most heroes are too cool to care. (Watch a musical video aid.)

Everyone has said they “don’t care” in one way or another at some point or always. It can be used for good, as if to declare emotional immunity to some mega bummer or some raging ass-hat. Like some flinty hero turning their back and walking away from an explosion in slow motion, conveying, “Oops, the EMPTY light just lit up on my tank of shits to give.”

This is used for villainous purposes, too, as an insult saying your uncaring is so great you wouldn’t spit on someone/something if they/it were on fire.
 

Who cares, right?

Me. I apparently care a lot about people properly saying they don’t care. However they’re used, there’s a near-endless parade of phrases we’ve created to say we don’t care. But, as with inbreeding, some of them wound up a bit mutated in the evolution. So much so that it can be hard to tell what makes sense any more. Ugh.

Parents can all agree proper grammar and logic is important, even when using one of these conversational “don’t care” mic drops. Never mind if it’s R-rated with a heavy payload of F bombs or as G-rated as an eye roll. Sure, we don’t want our kids to be potty mouths, but we also don’t want their sentences to seem like they learned to talk from Yoda or pirates. So let’s get this right!

Where’d it start? Before it got foul-mouthed or confusing?
 

“I don’t give a dam.” (not damn)

 

Ages ago the money used in India was called “dam.” It was so worthless Brits started saying they “wouldn’t give a dam” for some crappy thing. Over time this became, “not giving a damn.” Because frankly, my dear, a lot of folks don’t give very many damns about spelling or the bygone monetary unit of India.

Then people started turning up the volume on the swear words. Go fucking figure.
 

“I don’t give a…”

“I don’t give a shit.” This still makes sense, the idea being that one cares so little they wouldn’t even be willing to offer their own feces for something or someone. If you thought some currencies were weak, try pulling a turd out of your wallet at the register. (Don’t actually try that.)

“I don’t give a fuck.” Welp. That escalated quickly. Humanity is often THAT GUY who has to take an already spicy dish and drench it in mind-altering hot sauce, so it’s no big surprise that a scorching hot F pepper was thrown into this phrase. Obviously the F word is used here in its general, all-purpose sense, not as “sexual intercourse,” but now we’re making less sense for the sake of weaponizing our not-caringness.

On the flip side, these phrases obviously have spun-off more subdued versions, with foam-padded words of varying softness, as in “I don’t give a darn/dang/hoot/bother/care/poo/crap/etc.” They all still say the same thing.
 

Plenty of snark to give…

What the more vulgar phrases lack in sense-making these days, they more than make up for in color and wit. They aren’t really what bugs me. I’ll get to that soon.

“Unfortunately I’m not a citizen of nor do I ever plan to travel to Giveafuckistan.”

(Website error) “404 Shits to Give Not Found”

“Even MacGyver couldn’t construct a rudimentary fuck for me to give.”

(Pats chest and pockets) “Must be in my other pants, I’m fresh out of fucks to give.”

“NASA sent a deep space probe to find the planet Giveafuckaboutthat and confirmed that it doesn’t exist.”

“My next New Year’s resolution will be to try to give more shits about that.”

“I’d give some, but my account keeps giving me an Insufficient Fucks alert.”

Could vs Could Not

Here’s where it can get really wacko.

“I could care less!” Huh? Um. That kinda indicates you do care, and it also gives no qualification to how much caring there is, so it could be a lot! You’re supposed to say you “could NOT care less,” meaning you’re at absolutely no caring. It gets worse.

“I could give a shit!” Wait. What? You COULD give one? This seems to indicate that, though super duper nasty, there’s at least SOME consideration you’re willing to pay. Or that you’re about to crap your pants? And I refuse to comment on or even look over edge of the abyss of stupidity that is the statement “I could give a fuck.”

Let’s look at another version that almost requires a diagram, when someone says they “could give a less large shit.” So it could be smaller? Lemme get this right, you could give a shit, but it might be just an itty bitty shit? It should be “could NOT,” people! It’s supposed to be a clever way of saying, Shits Given Size: ZERO!

“I could give two less large shits” you say? TWO whole shits? Somehow upping the number of shits (with smaller size options) makes it worse? We’re so lost now, at this point it just seems like a gross riddle or someone’s revealing a debilitating digestive condition.
 

To give shits, or not to give shits?

People are throwing punches at their own faces when they mess these phrases up. I’m not saying that I expect human intellect to hit great heights in an emotional moment, but really?! C’MON! Practice in a mirror if you have to. Create flash cards! Develop an app!!! I just… Whatever.

Maybe I don’t even give a shit anymore. Where do I turn in my shits to give? Apparently they’re not that large and there are only two of them or something.

““

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