Let Idioms Be Idioms

In NRO Jay Nordlinger has a column called “Impromptus.” Impromptus can be described as unpremeditated, spur-to-the-moment inspiration. Nordlinger, a senior editor at National Review, is also the music critic of the New Criterion. (Jay, as he notes, has written for both magazines since the previous century. Or, as a 20-something colleague of Jay’s likes to say, when jiving with him: “the previous millennium.”)

Mr. Nordlinger hits on many subjects – politics, the state of the world, injustices, calamities, and sometimes grace, sports, music, and language, to name a few.

Recently, he stuck to language, roaring about the classic American idiom: “Could care less.”

… the thing about idioms is: They are idiomatic. They are not supposed to make grammatical sense, necessarily. They are — you know: idioms.

This comes up in Wicked, the new movie, which I saw last week. Galinda says, “I could care less,” and Elphaba “corrects” her: “I could not care less.”

Jay admits to suppressing sophomoric, artless behavior: “I almost thrust a middle finger to the screen.