care
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care verb To be willing or agreeable to, mind (usually in phrase I don’t care to or I would not care, especially as a response to a suggestion or invitation). The verb may range in sense from the understatement “not to object” to the more affirmative “to be pleased if one does.”
1862 (in 1999 Davis CW Letters 83) I dont care if we get to Stay here during the war for I am highly pleased with our Situation. 1929 Chapman Mt Man 510 “I don’t care for work” means “I like to work—I don’t mind working.” And “I’d not care to drive a car” means “I am not afraid to—I’d like to drive a car.” Yet outlanders who have lived years in the mountains are still taking these comments in the modern sense, and advertising that the mountain man is lazy and that he is shy of modern invention. 1939 Hall Recording Speech 7 Examples of not to care to for not to mind, as in a sentence spoken by an Emerts Cove man, “She don’t care to talk,” meaning “She doesn’t mind talking,” are found in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. c1959 Weals Hillbilly Dict 5 When a mountaineer says, “I don’t keer to work,” what he means is that he doesn’t object to working, that he’s used to working, and that he accepts the fact that a man must work to live. 1998 Brewer Words of Past Another East Tennesseism is the practice, when asking somebody to do something, of adding “if you don’t care to” when the meaning is exactly opposite of the plain English. An example would be, “Would you carry me to work, if you don’t care to?” 1999 Montgomery File A lot of mountain people are kind of backward, but I don’t care to talk to nobody. 2005 Bailey Henderson County 32 Now and then he pushed his wilted felt hat to the back of his head and wiped away beads of perspiration that gleamed on his brow. Yet he never slackened his pace and his eyes charted the road ahead as he walked with determined steps. Then someone he knew eased up alongside him.” I’m on my way to town, Will,” the fellow said. “Want to ride wi’ me?” Will looked into the familiar face, and feeling in no way compelled to prove his independence, he answered, “I wouldn’t care to.” Because the driver knew that, in mountain lingo, “I wouldn’t care to” means “I don’t mind if I do,” he waited for Will to open the door and climb in.