dakinemaui I'm also a fan of "semi-monthly," but as always, it's complicated. 

Matthew only because dictionary writers won't hold the line...

dakinemaui That begs the question (🤮🤮🤮) of why they don’t. 

dakinemaui This is why I've adopted "fortnightly" for every two weeks. "Semimonthly" similarly removes the ambiguity for twice a month.

Superbone And what do you call something that happens six times per year?

dakinemaui I would call it "something that happens six times a year", I suppose. 😄 Or, "every two months." Better yet, I'd avoid ever having that situation so I wouldn't have to say anything. So far, so good.

dakinemaui semi-monthly and bimonthly mean the same thing now and linguists (and our good friends, the lexicographers) could literally care less about it. 😈

WordTenor do you mean "couldn't care less"? There's another debate that gets frustrating to some!

Orchid Device I most assuredly meant "could care less." :) 

WordTenor  *nods head* - Just had to put it out there! It's so often wrong! :)

WordTenor Sooo, you actually care some?

Orchid Device To be clear, the meaning is that linguists don't give a [insert vulgarity of your choice] about the distinction, which is an idea which can be expressed in English as both "could care less" and "couldn't care less."  So yes, I meant to use "could care less" because this is a thread about prescriptive language, so I'm deliberately throwing in a completely standard usage of something prescriptivists get in twist about to illustrate that larger point. 🙂

WordTenor Oh, it can be expressed both ways. Only one makes any sense. Next people are going to start defending double negatives. 

Habanero Salsa Sweetpea, she's being too nice, but I feel no such compunctions. She knows way more than you do on this topic. Take a seat.

WordTenor Irregardless, one purpose of language is communication, and if that has been accomplished, then it has been effective.

bevocat It doesn’t take a linguist to understand that, read literally, “could care less” doesn’t mean what people intend it to mean. So I’ll stay standing. Thanks, though. 

I was raised by someone smarter than any three people here, so I’m fine defending my position whenever I feel like taking one. 

Habanero Salsa So, I've only lived in the south a few years, but I know you're native to a place with this construction, so I hope I'll get its usage right, here...

...bless your sweet heart! <3 

WordTenor Yeah, I definitely get it, but it’s supposed to be just “bless your heart.” “Oh, bless your heart” if you’re really dropping the bomb.

Even better is to use “ma’am” in place of a NSFW word. Like, “Ma’am, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Or, “Excuse me, ma’am.” It comes across poorly in writing, though.

Habanero Salsa Oh, well thank you for the correction. Like I said, I'm nonnative to this variety. 

I'll revise that to,

Oh, bless your heart! 

then.

WordTenor That’s much closer, ma’am.

Habanero Salsa Now, don't make me have to ma'am slap you. Run along.

WordTenor You’ll have to bring a lot more than that. 

Annieland That’s just wrong on so many levels. 

Matthew I don't, but I have Google and I can appreciate your implication through use of ambiguous language.

Move Light Sound Life If you think the people — not the people in this thread who are making a point of using phrases in a particular way — who say “I could care less” do so in a sarcastic way, I’m going to have to disagree. They’re the same type of people who think “begs the question” means “raises the question.” They aren’t doing it to make some kind of point or joke  

Habanero Salsa We'll have to agree to disagree. I think it has developed such that "I could care less" inherently has a touch of sarcasm, whether the speaker knows it or not. I also think anyone who gets tripped up on it or tries to be "correct" is thinking about it too much. Kind of like "bimonthly," although there are admittedly more real consequences for unintended interpretations because bimonthly isn't informal language. :)

Move Light Sound Life There are some, obviously, like the people here, who do use it sarcastically. There are more who don’t. 

I think that thinking about semantics, the evaluation of language, and how we evaluate people when they use what we consider to be nonstandard or nonsensical language is very interesting and I don’t mind thinking about it “too much.” I’m trying to upgrade my Spanish and one of the most interesting aspects, to me, is how I sound to a native speaker when I get the word order wrong or use the wrong words as between, say, por/para or ser/estar. Yes, they can probably understand me. Yes, I probably sound like a goof. There are grammatical, syntactical, and semantical issues at play and I’d rather try to be correct than merely understood, even if that is thinking too much. 

Habanero Salsa I'd say worrying about por/para and ser/estar is appropriate depending on the circumstances. An application or publication? Sure. Refine your language use to the most standard. The goal of your communication, among other things, is to signal a careful attention to the norms and willingness to put effort into adhering to them. If you're a guest (not a participant) at a quinces, you're not only wasting your time and effort that would be better spent enjoying yourself and being a lively interlocutor, you're signaling to your fellow guests that you're treating this occasion not as a diverting entertainment, but as a time to be evaluated and judged. The other guests came to have a good time, not take a Spanish test.

bevocat My Hispanic friends, and their relatives, disagree with your evaluation. The people I met in Ecuador disagree with your evaluation. They see me, correctly, signaling that their language is important to me. 
 

I’ve only been to one quinceañera, though I’ve been invited to another on in a few months, but at the weddings, birthday parties, and random gatherings, I’m as lively an interlocutor as my personality permits, even if I say “¿Cómo se dice...?” or “Más despacio, por favor...” more than the average attendee. 

Move Light Sound Life I usually go with “I’m doing well.” I save “I’m good” causally to say, “I don’t need any help/more tea/more salsa/etc.”

To me, it’s more like people who say, “You should go with my friend and I” or “Me and my friend are going.” They genuinely don’t understand when to use objective or subjective. Some people genuinely think “I could care less” means they don’t care at all. 

Move Light Sound Life said:
Abs|-3| and 3 are completely interchangeable.

 They are, but 3 and -3 aren’t, and “I couldn’t care less” and “I could care less” are more like  3 and -3.