Character mistake: Will's tax demonstration to his volunteer staffers is incorrect. He applies the various tax rates to the entirety of each salary range. The person who makes $150K and is in the 36% rate...in his example he has them paying 36% on their entire salary, not just the portion of it that puts them ahead of the next lower tax rate. If the tax rate jumped to 70% at income of $1M, and a person earned $1,050,000, they wouldn't be paying the 70% rate on all $1,050,000 of their income, only the last $50,000 of it. Will's example makes it look like they would be.
The West Wing (1999)
1 character mistake in Red Haven's on Fire
Starring: Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Stockard Channing, Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill, John Spencer, Janel Moloney, Joshua Malina
Genres: Drama
Election Day (Part 1) - S7-E16
Continuity mistake: When Bruno and Bob are poring over exit polls, they mention that Santos seems to be leading in North Dakota, and comment that it is a state that hasn't gone Democratic in forty years. While that is true in the real world, in the fictional West Wing world, it is stated in Season 4 that Bartlet won the Dakotas in his landslide reelection.
Trivia: The theme tune heard for the show "Capital Beat" is actually the theme music for the UK's "News at Ten" on ITV.
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?
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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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.