"Kilt check" question

**Chainsaw02** · 16th March 10, 06:40 PM

I guess I'm the only dirty old guy here. I have been kilt checked and ask "the question" more times than I can remember. And I could care less! I have had females offer to or show me what they were wearing if I asked. As far as men are concerned not one has tried as I am a fairly imposing individule but some have ask "the question". My wife of 47 years is normally with me and takes it all in stride.

I really have fun with my kilt. I'm way to old to get up tight about it and it's a great ego boost at 67 years of age when a young and lovely checks me out.

Larry Dirr

**QMcK** · 16th March 10, 07:31 PM

Don't you mean you couldn't care less? Saying you could care less means that you do care.

**Chainsaw02** · 16th March 10, 07:37 PM

Thank you for the correction QMcK. I really couldn't care less...

Larry Dirr

**ccga3359** · 16th March 10, 07:54 PM

Originally Posted by Chainsaw02

Thank you for the correction QMcK. I really couldn't care less...

Larry Dirr

OK I'm confused, you couldn't care less for being kilt checked or for Chainsaw02 correcting you?

**HarborSpringsPiper** · 16th March 10, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by QMcK

Don't you mean you couldn't care less? Saying you could care less means that you do care.

BTW, I meant to respond to this earlier. This is one of those crazy American idioms. I've heard it either way. Here's an explanation. Copy and Paste is always easier, sorry!

"could care less” is one of those idiomatic expressions, particularly in American English, that doesn’t necessarily mean what it says. There are numerous suggestions for the origin of the phrase. The most recent of these is that “I could care less” is a corruption of the term “I couldn’t care less,” possibly first used in the UK in the 1940s. By the 1960s, Americans had adopted “I could care less.” Was it laziness, poor hearing or deliberate irony?

Many contend it was laziness, much like the phrase “a hot cup of coffee,” changing to, "who wants a hot cup?" Most people would prefer to have a cup of hot coffee, or eat their cake and have it too. Simple reversals or omissions of words can result in phrases like “I could care less,” when what you really mean is you don’t care at all.

There is some suggestion that the phrase “I could care less” may have been adopted because it fit into certain Yiddish phrases that deliberately mean the opposite and can be viewed as sarcastic. Such phrases include, “I should be so lucky,” which really means you’re not likely to have the luck. Another phrase, “Tell me about it,” means the opposite. It’s merely a way to agree with the speaker. Alternately, speaking the term “Testify!” as used in certain Christian churches, is a similar agreement that seldom means someone is actually going to sit down or stand up and give a testimony of how they converted to Christianity.

Another theory, advanced by linguistics specialist Henry Churchyard, suggested the statement “You know nothing and you care less” used in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park is the origin of the term. If this were the case, the “know nothing” would be comparative to caring less than the little you know. The current version of the phrase would then represent idiom by omission.

It should be stated that Mansfield Park is one of Austen’s least popular books, and was in general slammed by the critics during Austen’s time and thereafter. That people would quote from it is in significant dispute. However, if Austen used the term as one common to her day, it’s possible it was already in use. The whole quote “You know nothing and you care less, as people say,” is important because it advances the possibility the phrase was in use in Austen’s day and she is not its inventor.

In any case, “I could care less,” must be interpreted as not caring at all. Whether by omission, design, laziness or quote, it’s one of those mixed up idioms that plagues learners of English.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-i-...-less-mean.htm

**docr606** · 16th March 10, 07:40 PM

In 1988, while I was in the Cleveland Police Pipes & Drums, after the St. Patricks Day parade, we were all at
a pub somewhere ( I cant remember where , and I had been embibing ), as we left the stage after performing,
a female Sgt. from my district, asked the question.
I smiled and reached down and lifted my kilt up as high
as I could, needless to say she never asked again ( there was no underwear, and I have stopped embibing.....)

**KiltShot** · 16th March 10, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by docr606

...I smiled and reached down and lifted my kilt up as high as I could, needless to say she never asked again...

That answer to the question surely must be the ultimate in effectiveness.
I wonder why it isn't suggested more often?

And then, even more amazing to me:

Why didn't I think of it?

**billmcc** · 16th March 10, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by KiltShot

That answer to the question surely must be the ultimate in effectiveness.
I wonder why it isn't suggested more often?

A person could get arrested and thrown in jail for indecent exposure.

**Highlander31** · 16th March 10, 10:39 PM

Like Zardoz, I have been kilt checked at the Renfaires, and sometimes at the games. It is always been polite and in good fun. I have not had a woman I didn't know ever lift my kilt. What I usually get is a woman wanting to have her picture taken with me and she will slide her hand down the back of my kilt. Some offer an explanation, "I was just straightening your pleats".

I did have one man try to lift my kilt in a pub. He was quite inebriated and I slapped his hand the first time. When he tried a second time, I used the pressure point near the clavicle to drop him to his knees. At that point everyone in the pub knew what he had tried to do. He was quiet the rest of the evening.

I wouldn't file charges for an unwanted kilt check. In today's times of Political Correctness, it could actually ruin somebody's life with a sexual predator label, at least here in the States that could be the end result (assuming you could get a district attorney to prosecute.) I'm willing to bet that most of us have done one or two stupid things when we were younger, which could have made life miserable if the other person involved wanted to push it. But that's just my opinion.

**HarborSpringsPiper** · 16th March 10, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by Highlander31

It is always been polite and in good fun. I have not had a woman I didn't know ever lift my kilt.

And who would have a problem with that? The couple of incidents I have experienced were out of left field and that was the problem, especially as I was piping at the time.

If I were single and a babe wanted to sidle up to me a check out the situation, why wouldn't I be into that? Standing in the middle of the bar and somebody's going to show the world what I don't wear under my kilt? Don't care how proud I am of what lies beneath, that ain't right.