Thursday, November 20, 2008

Irregardless: Height of Literary Idiocy

The height of literary idiocy is not simply the usage of the non-existent word, irregardless. No. That pinnacle is reserved for idiots who use that word, and if anyone objects, smugly point to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

It is amazing how many people have come to think that it is an acceptable word for colloquial usage, based on such dictionary entries. As for the genius who entered that word into the M-W dictionary, confirming that "there is such a word", tamely calling it "nonstandard", and not asserting that it is WRONG, that worthy should be banned from ever touching a dictionary in his life, let alone updating one!

At least, Dictionary.com has this usage note:
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so. (Emphasis mine).


If you are one of those who argue that English is an evolving language and so, if the majority of people use irregardless, it will become part of the language and a real word, try irregularless and disrespectless for size. See if you can figure out juse why irregardless will NEVER, EVER be a correct word no matter how many people use it!

2 comments:

  1. LL,
    Irregardless? Gosh....hearing it for the first time. Can't believe people use it.

    My pet peeves:

    1. Spelling "losing something" as "loosing something". I'm seeing this OVER and OVER again, and it bugs the heck out of me. You "loose" a grenade/some-bad-stuff "onto" something/someone. "Lose" and "loose" are just not the same.

    2. Using the word "preventative". Folks, it is preventive.

    Priya.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LL,
    Have never heard of irregardless. Is jarring to the ear, no doubt.

    Some language peeves of mine:

    1. In written form, using "loose" in place of "lose". "Losing something" and "loosing something" are just not the same. One looses grenades and such. This misuse of loose is RAMPANT especially in blogs.

    2. Using the non-word preventative instead of preventive. I have seen this a lot too.

    Hope all is well at your end. Will call.

    Priya.

    ReplyDelete

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