‘Career’ is normal in British English to describe wild or out of control transit. ‘Careen’ or ‘carome’ are understood to have similar meaning, but sound more archaic and further contain the suggestion of ricocheting or glancing against static objects en route.
Sadly, in most cases, no. There’s the above-mentioned “I could care less, but it’s too much effort” usage, of course… But I’m pretty sure that most people who say “I could care less” are actually just saying it wrong without realizing that they are. 
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I should have clarified; it’s an expression that originated as a sarcastic expression, but has since lost that quality through over-use. I was really having a joke about the US use of the word ‘irony’ to describe sarcasm - firstly because they don’t really describe the same thing, and secondly because we Brits find that USians often fail to grasp sarcastic expressions outside of set phrases such as the one discussed.
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I honestly think it’s just stupid people who heard “I couldn’t care less” and then repeated it as “I could care less” without realizing that it didn’t make sense.
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I’d just like it if people would say no if I ask if they mind me doing something (unless they do mind…)
And the non-sarcastic use of “thanks a bunch” throws me every time.
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Well ,since Mark Twain wrote that Tom Sawyer was “literally rolling in money” to indicate his wealth, I think this isn’t so much a losing battle as the memory of a war waged ages ago. But the fact is, if you actually peed your pants laughing at something, and you want to tell someone that, you might say something like, “That was so funny I - I’m a little embarrassed to admit this - I lost control of my bladder.” Use your serious tone of voice. 50/50 they believe you.
The inability to tell others the truth is something you just have to sometimes accept. Just before I walked into my mother’s visitation a fly flew up and hit me right in my open eye. Tears were streaming down my face as I entered. I didn’t bother telling anyone about the fly. The word “literally” wouldn’t have helped.
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I only have my personal experience to go by but as far as I can tell no non-American has ever said it in my hearing while several Americans have.
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Carome yes, but careen? The use of careen for career is not archaic but relatively recent.
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I didn’t say either word was archaic, but that it seems archaic to our ears. ‘Careen’ has existed since the 1590s, referring originally to rolling a ship onto its side - so that sense of out of control movement is there already, although it appears to become a substitute for ‘career’ only in the 20th century. That change of meaning hasn’t really been adopted in the UK, so people probably understand the sense in which it is being used but don’t really use it themselves. You are right in that the term ‘career’ is actually older, and related originally to jousting (like the phrase ‘going full tilt’).
Carome or carom (I think I got the spelling wrong originally) is linked to billiards-type games, I think, although the game carom (involving striking glancing blows to game pieces with a sort of puck has probably preserved the word.
Seems pretty prescriptive for a linguist
I think that the problem here is not the use of the word ‘literally’ per se, but the ebola-like spread of a raging, relentless addiction to hyperbole; one so all-consuming that it will ruin language utterly as a means of communication and likely lead directly to the downfall of civilisation itself. ‘Literally’ is a manifestation of this but by no means the only example.
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I’m glad someone did.
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yew doughnut kneed two tall knee dot papal ewes wards wrung slum tine.
(at least our brains are amazing decoding machines that can make sense out of others gibberish…well most of the time anyway!)
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