The West Wing

7A WF 83429 - S5-E1

Continuity mistake: Will, Josh, Donna and Toby are in Josh's office talking about Toby's twins; Josh leaves the office with his arms by his side, but when the shot switches to show him coming through the doorway, he is clutching his books to his chest. There was no time for the change.

7A WF 83429 - S5-E1

Continuity mistake: When Margaret walks into Leo's office and he sleeps, the screen says it's the sixteenth hour of Zoey's kidnapping. Leo asks Margaret what time it is and she says it's almost 5:00. At the beginning of the episode when Abby and the president talk at the residence, the president says it's 6:30, and the screen says it's the eighth hour of the kidnapping, then if we move another eight hours until we get to the sixteenth hour of the kidnapping, it would be 2:30, not 5:00.

Eduardo Sánchez Rodríguez

7A WF 83429 - S5-E1

Factual error: In the television clip introducing the bombing in Turkey, the footage almost certainly comes from a Palestinian terror attack in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, Israel. Clearly visible in the frame is a Magen David Adom (Israeli Red Cross) ambulance marked with the Hebrew word "Dan" - a term for the area around Tel Aviv. The vast majority of raging fires that MDA ambulances responded to around Tel Aviv were the result of suicide bombings.

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In Excelsis Deo - S1-E10

Question: This is as good a place to ask as any. In various US TV shows (including this one, and this episode), someone says "I could care less", when they always seem to mean "I couldn't care less", ie. they have no interest in what's going on. Surely if they COULD care less that means they actually care a reasonable amount? Is there any logic to this, or is it just a really annoying innate lack of sense?

Jon Sandys

Chosen answer: A really annoying innate lack of sense. My friends and family say the same thing all the time, and I'm endlessly trying to correct them. I think people just don't know any better and (ironically) couldn't care less that they're speaking incorrectly.

Answer: It's an endlessly annoying dropped negative, and it's been a common colloquialism for far too long. I believe it comes from an original (and now omitted and merely implied) "As if" preceding the statement. "As if I could care less." (Meaning "As if it were possible that I could care even less than I do.") But there's really no way to know.

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