# Irregardless



## Gwan

Hi everyone,

Would you consider 'irregardless' to be a 'real' word? Both the OED and the WR dictionary note that it's used in 'humorous' or non-standard usage, which makes me think that it's not the best for a formal piece of writing.

The sentence is:

'Several librarians felt that, irregardless of their theme, many controversial or 'issues' books were not suited to storytime...'

I suppose I should just go with 'regardless', right? It somehow seems less forceful to me, or like it doesn't quite fit, but if the OED is against me, I should probably bow to its superior wisdom, unless anyone has any alternative suggestions?

Cheers


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## bibliolept

This thread discusses the word: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1104517


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## Loob

I was sure there had been previous threads, but seemingly not (other than the one mentioned by bibbles).

For me, "regardless" does the job nicely. I have no need for "irregardless"...

Just thinking: could "irregardless" be a conflation of "regardless" and "irrespective"?


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## Ynez

In www.dictionary.com they don't seem to like it. Have a look  There are several Usage Notes, and even the definitions are not really normal definitions. They truly dislike it!


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## JamesM

"Regardless" is the correct word, I'm afraid, although many people use "irregardless" with the best of intentions.


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## ewie

I must say I do like the *look* of _irregardless_.
Sadly that's the _only_ thing I like about it.


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## bibliolept

ewie said:


> I must say I do like the *look* of _irregardless_.
> Sadly that's the _only_ thing I like about it.



It seems to be inexorably slithering its way into common usage, and we may all look forward, with either anticipation or distaste, to its eventual acceptance as a "real" word.


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## Kevin Beach

Surely, if it has a meaning at all, *irregardless* means the opposite of *regardless*, doesn't it?

I suspect that people confuse *regardless* with its virtual synonym *irrespective* and move the prefix from the one to t'other.


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## timpeac

I would avoid it if I were you, if only for the reason that some people might look down on this usage.



Gwan said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Would you consider 'irregardless' to be a 'real' word? Both the OED and the WR dictionary note that it's used in 'humorous' or non-standard usage, which makes me think that it's not the best for a formal piece of writing.
> 
> The sentence is:
> 
> 'Several librarians felt that, irregardless of their theme, many controversial or 'issues' books were not suited to storytime...'
> 
> I suppose I should just go with 'regardless', right? It somehow seems less forceful to me, or like it doesn't quite fit, but if the OED is against me, I should probably bow to its superior wisdom, unless anyone has any alternative suggestions?
> 
> Cheers


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## Wordsmyth

I don't remember *ever* hearing it before, but reading it in Gwan's post here, my first reaction was the same as Kevin's: the "ir-" prefix would have to make it an opposite.

So if it tries any inexorable slithering in my direction, I'll stamp on it! ... And if enough of us do that, maybe it won't ever be accepted.

Ws


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## Cagey

I hear people use _irregardless_ when they want to be especially emphatic.  It sounds stronger because it has a negation on both ends.  It has the negative *ir-*, as in *ir*respective (as KB says),* ir*redeemable, and *ir*religious, and the suffix -*less*, meaning _without_, as in care*less*, or thought*less*, and numberless other familiar words.

It makes sense as a rhetorical choice.  Unfortunately it runs counter to the rules of word formation, as KB points out, and probably should be avoided where people are patrolling the boundaries of standard usage.

(Note:  the prefix _ir-_ in _ir_radiate and _ir_rigate and a few other words has a different meaning.)


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## Wordsmyth

Cagey said:


> _[...]_
> It makes sense as a rhetorical choice. Unfortunately it runs counter to the rules of word formation, as KB points out, and probably should be avoided where people are patrolling the boundaries of standard usage.
> 
> (Note: the prefix _ir-_ in _ir_radiate and _ir_rigate and a few other words has a different meaning.)


 
Cagey, I felt a hint of biblio's 'inexorable slithering' in your post, so forgive me if I do a bit of gentle stamping.

I follow the reasoning about it sounding stronger (in the same way as seeing a man with two heads would make me sit up and take notice), but I wouldn't go as far as saying "it makes sense". Even used rhetorically, I would understand it to mean "not regardless". If someone says "black", I don't stop to ask myself whether it might mean "white". 

Note: The different meaning of _ir-, _signifying _into_, usually (always?) occurs with verbs.

Ws


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## JamesM

Wordsmyth said:


> I don't remember *ever* hearing it before,


 
Just as a note... I hear it fairly often at work, from some quite intelligent people.  I believe it's one of those words that is easily adopted because something about it _feels_ correct until you examine its meaning.


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## bibliolept

I have a very pragmatic approach to the word: I will advise anyone against its use because too many people believe it to be ungrammatical and may see its user as someone who is less sophisticated or less educated.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

No one who says "regardless" will be regarded by anyone, no matter how unreasonably,  as inferior or contemptible in any way or to any degree merely for using that word.

The same is not true about those who say "irregardless".


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## Loob

JamesM said:


> Just as a note... I hear it fairly often at work, from some quite intelligent people. I believe it's one of those words that is easily adopted because something about it _feels_ correct until you examine its meaning.


That's interesting.  I haven't actually heard it yet, other than here in WRF.  I expect it's heading our way though....


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## Wordsmyth

JamesM said:


> Just as a note... I hear it fairly often at work, _[...]_


 
Judging by the reactions throughout this thread, and the info in Alxmrphi's link, maybe it's an AE/BE thing.

_Edit: I posted this before seeing Loob's last thread ... which further confirms my suspicion._

Ws


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## Dimcl

Loob said:


> That's interesting. I haven't actually heard it yet, other than here in WRF. I expect it's heading our way though....


 
I hear it a great deal so, yes, it's commminnnngggg......


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## Wordsmyth

Dimcl said:


> I hear it a great deal so, yes, it's commminnnngggg......


 Sliiitherrriing, no doubt.

So OK, I'm putting on my biggest stamping boots.

Ws


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## Loob

Dimcl said:


> I hear it a great deal so, yes, it's commminnnngggg......


*Scary*, Dimcl!

_With luck we'll survive._
_(Ir)regardless...._


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## Gwan

Okay, okay, I will be universally despised if I use it, gotcha! Any suggestions other than plain regardless? Maybe regardless is okay, but as I said, it seems to be lacking in oomph to me...


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## Cagey

Gwan said:


> Okay, okay, I will be universally despised if I use it, gotcha! Any suggestions other than plain regardless? Maybe regardless is okay, but as I said, it seems to be lacking in oomph to me...


What is it that you want to say?  To me, "[ir]regardless of their theme" might mean: 
"No matter what their theme, they wouldn't be suitable". That is, many "issue books," _because_ they are "issue books," are not suitable.

"Apart from their theme, they wouldn't be considered suitable."  That is, setting aside their themes, many issue books wouldn't be suitable for other reasons.  ​


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## Gwan

Erm at the risk of sounding even thicker, your two examples sound pretty much the same to me, in effect. Full sentence (edited before to avoid over-exciting everyone with the thrilling nature of my research):

 Several librarians felt that, irregardless of their theme, many ‘controversial’ or ‘issues’ books were not suited to storytime because they may be aimed at an older audience than the typical pre-school storytime group, or because they were not ‘fun’ stories, were too didactic or didn’t lend themselves to being read out loud.


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## JulianStuart

"Several librarians felt that, _even without regard to_ their theme, many ‘controversial’ or ‘issues’ books were not suited..."

Does that have more oomph, in your mind, than ir..... ?  It seems more emphatic to me.


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## Wordsmyth

Gwan said:


> _[...] _Any suggestions other than plain regardless? Maybe regardless is okay, but as I said, it seems to be lacking in oomph to me...


 
Irrespective? ... Independently?... or are they equally oomphless?

Otherwise, there's "totally regardless", "entirely regardless", "absolutely regardless", "with no regard whatsoever for", ...

Ws


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## JamesM

How about:

No matter what the theme, many ‘controversial’ or ‘issues’ books were considered unsuitable by several librarians for storytime because they were aimed at an older audience than the typical pre-school storytime group,were not ‘fun’ stories, were too didactic or didn’t lend themselves to being read out loud.


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## Gwan

Wellll I'm pretty sure irregardless is used a lot in these wild frontier lands. It actually sounds perfectly normal to me, it was only Word flagging it up that made me think twice (not that I believe everything Word has to say on the subject of grammar and spelling, not by a long shot!) As I said, it just seems more emphatic. But as the consensus is whole-heartedly towards it being incorrect, I definitely think the place for it is not in a Master's thesis, even if you believe usage trumps dictionaries!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and for the (occasionally scathing ) input! I think maybe I like 'irrespective'...


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## Loob

Gwan. please don't think we're being critical; we're just being curious English varies_ hugely_ from region to region...

I expect "irregardless" will arrive in the UK soon (though I'm not sure I'm enthusiastic about it!)


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## Gwan

Loob said:


> Gwan. please don't think we're being critical; we're just being curious English varies_ hugely_ from region to region...
> 
> I expect "irregardless" will arrive in the UK soon (though I'm not sure I'm enthusiastic about it!)



No, no, not offended. I just found the level of passion aroused quite amusing - I was amazed to see it had drawn so many comments when I logged back in. For those playing at home 'irregardless' gets 404 Google hits in NZ and 4,420 in the UK. Since that's about a ten-fold increase, but UK population is, according to WolframAlpha (look, it was good for something after all!) 14.5 times bigger than the NZ population, we may tentatively conclude that it is, in fact, more popular here. Here endeth the pointless lesson


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## Wordsmyth

But beware those Google hits, Gwan, especially in this case. Alxmrphi's link (post #10), includes this:

Australian linguist Pam Peters (_The Cambridge Guide to English Usage_, 2004) suggests that _irregardless_ has become fetishized, since natural examples of this word in corpora of written and spoken English are greatly *outnumbered by* *examples where it is in fact only cited as an incorrect term*.

So maybe that's true of the Google hits too.

_Edit:_ I just browsed through the first few Google pages. Virtually *all* the references were discussions on the (in)correctness of the word. Hardly any were actually using the word in context.

Ws


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## Gwan

Yeah that was a bit tongue in cheek... Not intended to be scientific at all, although you could argue that people are more likely to discuss its wrongness if they're hearing it a lot...


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## mplsray

Ynez said:


> In www.dictionary.com they don't seem to like it. Have a look  There are several Usage Notes, and even the definitions are not really normal definitions. They truly dislike it!



In the case of the first two dictionaries cited, Dictionary.com Unabridged (based upon the Random House Dictionary) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., there is no evidence that their editors "truly dislike it," or that they even dislike it at all. They are identifying it as _nonstandard,_ which, according to the philosophies of the editors of those dictionaries,  is intended to be an objective, rather than biased, assessment.

As for *Gwan*'s question about whether the word _irregardless_ is a "'real' word," there's not the slightest reason to believe that it is not.


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## boozer

I am a non-native speaker of English but, for one reason or the other, I have read and written more English in my life than Bulgarian. Needless to say I had never seen this word. If I heard it spoken, I would probably understand the meaning because of the more immediate nature of spoken communication. If, however, I saw it written, then I would analyse it in exactly the same way as already described in the thread. I would think that _ir-_ must negate _-less_ and then I would try to see how this added negation in an already negative word modifies the overall meaning. It would be tough, I promise you...


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## Ynez

mplsray said:


> In the case of the first two dictionaries cited, Dictionary.com Unabridged (based upon the Random House Dictionary) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., there is no evidence that their editors "truly dislike it," or that they even dislike it at all. They are identifying it as _nonstandard,_ which, according to the philosophies of the editors of those dictionaries,  is intended to be an objective, rather than biased, assessment.



I had never heard/read the word, so I didn't/don't dislike it at all. But I could not help finding the descriptions of the word really surprising.

Have in mind that I was expecting it to be a normal word, and the first thing I see is this:



> –adverb Nonstandard.



which at first I could not even understand.

I wondered _does it mean "nonstandard"_?

You must be right and it is me who was biased when saying they truly dislike it, but that was what I thought when I saw the description, which is totally out of the norm.


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## Philo2009

Gwan said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Would you consider 'irregardless' to be a 'real' word?


 
No, it is an out-and-out malapropism, just like Bush's now famous 'misunderestimate'.

Use it only if you wish to sound like a semi-educated buffoon!


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## fwanz

from another dictionary (merriam-webster) .... 

Main Entry: ir·re·gard·less
 Function: _adverb_ Etymology: probably blend of _irrespective_ and _regardless_ Date: circa 1912 _nonstandard_ *: regardless*

*usage* _Irregardless_ originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. 
...
It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use _regardless_ instead.
_Source_


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## mplsray

Philo2009 said:


> No, it is an out-and-out malapropism, just like Bush's now famous 'misunderestimate'.
> 
> Use it only if you wish to sound like a semi-educated buffoon!



_Irregardless_ is neither a private word nor a nonce word, as _misunderestimate_ presumably was--I expect that was the only time that Bush uttered it. As the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, referenced earlier, mentioned, it originated in dialectal speech. Among other things, that means that, unlike Bush's term, _irregardless_ is a word which people learn from other people. 

Unless by "'real' word" you mean "standard," _irregardless_ is very much a real word. And if you do believe that an utterance cannot be a "real" word unless it is standard, then you are left with the absurd conclusion that a great many of the people on Earth communicate without using "real" words.


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## przemo84

"3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints

§ 184. irregardless


Irregardless is a word that many people mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. The word was coined in the United States in the early 20th century, probably from a blend of irrespective and regardless. Perhaps this is why some critics insist that there is “no such word” as irregardless, a charge they would not think of leveling at a nonstandard word with a longer history, such as ain’t. Since people use irregardless, it is undoubtedly a word. But it has never been accepted in Standard English and is usually changed by editors to regardless before getting into print."

source: The American Heritage Book of English Usage, 1996

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0184.html


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## johndot

Philo2009 said:


> No, it is an out-and-out malapropism, just like Bush's now famous 'misunderestimate'.
> 
> Use it only if you wish to sound like a semi-educated buffoon!



I’m sure it can’t be defined as a malapropism, can it? “Malapropism” is the mistaken substitution of one (standard) word for another (standard) word, whereas “irregardless” is the result of _merging_ two (standard) words.


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## Pedro y La Torre

JamesM said:


> Just as a note... I hear it fairly often at work, from some quite intelligent people. I believe it's one of those words that is easily adopted because something about it _feels_ correct until you examine its meaning.



Indeed. I've heard it used a lot in Ireland, and I admit to using it myself. 

Although upon examining it, it is rather nonsensical, the word has entered spoken speech to such a degree that it is already "standard usage" amongst a large number of people. In fact, I'd never even thought about its merits as a word before happening upon this thread. It's certainly no where the level of misunderestimate which is an obvious mistake to just about everybody, educated or not.


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## ewie

The difference between _irregardless_ and _misunderestimate_, and the factor which would make me 10,000 times more likely to actually use the latter, is that _irregardless _ usurps the place already adequately covered by _regardless/irrespective_ etc., whereas _misunderestimate _~ no matter how buffoonish it might sound ~ actually *fills a gap where there is no word* in English


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## johndot

I was just in the process of composing the same. Excellent, *ewie*!


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## timpeac

ewie said:


> The difference between _irregardless_ and _misunderestimate_, and the factor which would make me 10,000 times more likely to actually use the latter, is that _irregardless _usurps the place already adequately covered by _regardless/irrespective_ etc., whereas _misunderestimate _~ no matter how buffoonish it might sound ~ actually *fills a gap where there is no word* in English


 But surely it would be overestimate, wouldn't it, if you misunderestimated something?


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## ewie

Well ... no, Tim.  You could '_over_-under-estimate' something, which would be a misunderestimation = an erroneous underestimation.

This is probably off-topic or something


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## cuchuflete

My Great Uncle Wilbur, a lover and coiner of many non-standard terms, would always make the following statement when he heard a speaker say _irregardless:

_In the final urinalysis, Nephew, it's completely invenereal to me.
​Yes, it is a word, and doubtless there are those who love it.  I'm with Great Uncle Wilbur in my lack of enthusiasm for it.


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## Philo2009

mplsray said:


> _Irregardless_ is neither a private word nor a nonce word, as _misunderestimate_ presumably was--



I have called it neither.  It is, as already stated, quite simply a malapropism, whose use indicates a poor level of education and of vocabulary.

Either way, it certainly has no currency in the standard language, and that, I believe you will find, is what learners come to this site to be informed about!!

EOC


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## mplsray

Philo2009 said:


> I have called it neither. It is, as already stated, quite simply a malapropism, whose use indicates a poor level of education and of vocabulary.
> 
> Either way, it certainly has no currency in the standard language, and that, I believe you will find, is what learners come to this site to be informed about!!
> 
> EOC


 
You're wrong about that last point. Learners come to this site to be informed of all sorts of language, both nonstandard and standard--they often enquire about slang, for example.

If, for the sake of argument, I were to agree with you that _irregardless_ is a malapropism, it would remain a "real" word.


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## Ynez

Philo2009 said:


> ... whose use indicates a poor level of education and of vocabulary.



From what I've learnt in this thread, it just seems to indicate that the person had not seen the definition or heard about its bad reputation.


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## mplsray

> Originally Posted by *Philo2009 *
> ... whose use indicates a poor level of education and of vocabulary.





Ynez said:


> From what I've learnt in this thread, it just seems to indicate that the person had not seen the definition or heard about its bad reputation.



Unusually for a nonstandard word, at least three dictionaries, in addition to noting its nonstandard status, identify it as being "humorous" or in "humourous use": Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd ed. (commonly known as Webster's Second); The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.; and Webster's New World College Dictionary.

It's hard to see how _irregardless_ could be used humorously unless the speaker was fully aware of the strong feelings many have about the word.


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## ewie

Maybe those dictionaries meant the _effect_ rather than the _intent_ was humorous, MPL.


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## mplsray

ewie said:


> Maybe those dictionaries meant the _effect_ rather than the _intent_ was humorous, MPL.



I'm sure they explain in their introductory pages what the usage label "humorous" means in their dictionaries, which I cannot check at the moment, but I fully expect that they mean what some other dictionaries refer to in their usage labels as "jocular"--that is, a word intended by the speaker or writer to be humorous.


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## Cagey

Yes, I agree with mlspray about what the dictionaries mean, and I agree with the dictionaries as well.  In my experience, people do use _irregardless _deliberately to be humorous.  

Other people use _irregardless_ with no such intention, as has been said above, and many of them are well-educated people who customarily speak standard English.  At least, this is true of speakers of AE, and, on the evidence of one contributer to this thread, possibly true of New Zealand English as well (NZE?).

I am not arguing against those who advise against using _irregardless_; I think language learners should avoid it, and people who want to use standard English should too.  I merely want to say that judging a person's level of education or general linguistic competence by the use of this word is over-interpretation, to put it mildly.


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## Packard

I was taught in high school that we should never use "irregardless". I've always regarded irregardless users as less educated than irregardless non-users as a result of the drumming in on that word that I had in high school.

I think that there are many others who were educated on this same point and who make that same conclusion when they hear *irregardless*.

In any event, here is a very amusing article and follow up blog on the word:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9796217-1.html

(And let's not forget "irregardlessly" which I've also heard.)


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## Ynez

Thank you for the article, Packard. This word is indeed something special...


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## una madre

Dimcl said:


> I hear it a great deal so, yes, it's commminnnngggg......




I agree that it's coming.   Regardless, I'm not going to entertain it!


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## cylon

To my non-native ear it sounds so wrong... why should you use a double negative? Logically it should mean the opposite like depending on something but it's really intricate and unnecessary...it's clearly a misuse to me.


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## Gwan

Philo2009 said:


> I have called it neither. It is, as already stated, quite simply a malapropism, whose use indicates a poor level of education and of vocabulary.
> 
> Either way, it certainly has no currency in the standard language, and that, I believe you will find, is what learners come to this site to be informed about!!
> 
> EOC


 
'Poor level of education and of vocabulary'? That's a pretty big call! I don't want to get on my "better-educated than thou" high horse or anything (for one thing, I might not be!), but that is a teensy-weensy bit offensive. I started the thread after it was flagged up as an error by Word while I was writing the thesis for my second Master's degree, and as I said earlier in the piece, it wouldn't have sounded at all wrong to me if Word hadn't drawn my attention to it... It's perhaps useful to know people will _perceive _users of 'irregardless' as uneducated and as having a poor vocabulary, and I'm quite happy not to use it in formal writing, but your post baldly says it is an _indication_ of those things, with which conclusion I beg to differ.


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## winklepicker

Philo2009 said:


> a malapropism, whose use indicates a poor level of education and of vocabulary



Which just means it hasn't entered Philo's vocabulary yet. When/if it does, it will not be the first English word to start out as a malaprop and end up as 'standard' English.

Oh, it's a bastard language all right....


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## Gwan

Okay, so it's probably 'just let it go' time (despite appearances, this is more intellectual curiosity than proving a point, honest ) and I do accept that the word is generally considered to be wrong... But had a bit of a trawl through the NZ Google results for 'irregardless' and the majority are actually genuine uses of the word, rather than posts about how wrong it is. Hits included two government websites, a city council website, documents on the websites of five different universities (quite impressive, out of a total of seven), a polytechnic website, a report from the national Animal Rights Legal Network, two political party websites (although one is the legalise cannabis party ) and a few national media outlets, amongst others. Naturally, this doesn't automatically make the word part of standard NZ English (I could run around taking photos of the infamous greengrocers' apostrophe and mount a similar argument...) but I think it is in fairly widespread use here, and as my examples show, at least occasionally by people who ought to be pretty educated and literate. 

PS Not trying to be obnoxious or prove people wrong here and I hope it doesn't come across like that. Was, admittedly (and obviously), somewhat miffed by the comment above that its use marks the speaker as a moron, but the rest of you gave constructive and objective comments and thanks for those.


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## timpeac

It certainly sounds like the word has greater coinage in New Zealand. Speaking as someone from the UK I don't hear or see this word much at all (well, at least I'm not aware of it). It seems to be mainly in the US it raises greatest passion (although I suspect it would here too if it were more widespread).

As ewie says above, it's not unusual for a word to be considered correct in one place and abhorred in another. Without wishing to get on to that topic itself, it makes me think of the effect on the ears of the speakers of to orient(AE)/orientate(BE).



Gwan said:


> Okay, so it's probably 'just let it go' time (despite appearances, this is more intellectual curiosity than proving a point, honest ) and I do accept that the word is generally considered to be wrong... But had a bit of a trawl through the NZ Google results for 'irregardless' and the majority are actually genuine uses of the word, rather than posts about how wrong it is. Hits included two government websites, a city council website, documents on the websites of five different universities (quite impressive, out of a total of seven), a polytechnic website, a report from the national Animal Rights Legal Network, two political party websites (although one is the legalise cannabis party ) and a few national media outlets, amongst others. Naturally, this doesn't automatically make the word part of standard NZ English (I could run around taking photos of the infamous greengrocers' apostrophe and mount a similar argument...) but I think it is in fairly widespread use here, and as my examples show, at least occasionally by people who ought to be pretty educated and literate.
> 
> PS Not trying to be obnoxious or prove people wrong here and I hope it doesn't come across like that. Was, admittedly (and obviously), somewhat miffed by the comment above that its use marks the speaker as a moron, but the rest of you gave constructive and objective comments and thanks for those.


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## Packard

cylon said:


> To my non-native ear it sounds so wrong... why should you use a double negative? Logically it should mean the opposite like depending on something but it's really intricate and unnecessary...it's clearly a misuse to me.


 
Is "flammable" a misuse?  It should be the opposite of "inflammable".  Logic has little influence on the English language it seems.


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## mplsray

Packard said:


> Is "flammable" a misuse?  It should be the opposite of "inflammable".  Logic has little influence on the English language it seems.



If logic takes a hit in the _flammable/inflammable_ matter, it's not the fault of the word itself. The following interesting story has a bearing on the word _irregardless:_

_Inflammable_ comes ultimately from Latin _inflammare,_ where the _in-_ was an intensive, not a negation. Scientists and insurance companies got to worrying that someone might take _inflammable_ as _noninflammable,_ so there was an effort to lobby the US government to require that _inflammable_ be replaced, on warning labels of products, to _flammable,_ in order to avoid some disaster.

What actually motivated them can be seen in the reaction to _irregardless._ There is really no double negative in irregardless. Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has said, "There is in fact only one negation in 'I didn't see nuffink'.... It's the negative of 'I saw somefink'." He is, of course, correct. Everyone, both those who use so-called double negation (Pullum prefers to call it _negative concord_) and those who do not, as long as they are native speakers, knows perfectly well what "I didn't see nuffink." actually means.

There is no negation in _inflammable_ and only one negation in _irregardless_--the negation of the idea "with regard to" (just as the adverb _regardless_ is not negating _regard,_ but instead, the idea held by "with regard to"). But the presence of that _in-_/_ir-_ drives some people a bit batty.

There was an attempt to discover whether _inflammable_ had ever been taken for _noninflammable_ before the word _flammable_ was introduced. Only one example was found, and even that one is not unquestionably a case of taking _inflammable_ to mean _noninflammable._

The substitute word _flammable_ was said to be from Latin _flammare,_ however it was an extremely rare word before the reformers took it up, and it seems to me that they were, in effect, using a cover story for their plan to simply knock the _in-_ off of _inflammable._

I once read a writer who attempted to analyze _irregardless_ as if it had an intensive form of _ir-_, which is a form of _-in._ Some people do use _irregardless_ as an emphatic form of _regardless_, according to links given earlier in this thread. But the analysis, although interesting, is etymologically unlikely in this case. I don't think the average person is aware of the intensive use of _in-_ and its other forms, so I doubt that he would have adopted them based upon that, and I doubt that a scholar would have put _ir-_ onto _regardless_ for that purpose, either. Addition: That last point is irrelevant in any case, since _irregardless_ is known to have originally been a dialectal form.


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## boozer

mplsray said:


> ... There is really no double negative in irregardless. Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has said, "There is in fact only one negation in 'I didn't see nuffink'.... It's the negative of 'I saw somefink'." He is, of course, correct. Everyone, both those who use so-called double negation (Pullum prefers to call it _negative concord_) and those who do not, as long as they are native speakers, knows perfectly well what "I didn't see nuffink." actually means..


I greatly enjoyed reading this small essay, evidently written by a very well educated person.
The only question that still intrigues me is whether one misuse can be used to legitimate another.


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## mplsray

boozer said:


> I greatly enjoyed reading this small essay, evidently written by a very well educated person.
> The only question that still intrigues me is whether one misuse can be used to legitimate another.



I'm not trying to "legitimate" anything. Both negative concord and _irregardless_ are nonstandard. What I object to is the extreme reaction to both. People who say "I can't get no satisfaction." means "I can get satisfaction." are uttering an absurdity. People who say "_Irregardless_ is not a word," or "_Irregardless_ is the opposite of _regardless._" are uttering an absurdity.


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## winklepicker

mplsray said:


> People who say  "_Irregardless_ is the opposite of _regardless._" are uttering an absurdity.



Where does that leave antidisestablishmentarianism then? Or are we like Humpty Dumpty, using words to mean whatever we like?


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## mplsray

winklepicker said:


> Where does that leave antidisestablishmentarianism then? Or are we like Humpty Dumpty, using words to mean whatever we like?



That _irregardless_ means the same as _regardless_ does not in the slightest affect the fact that _antidisestablishmentarianism_ refers to an opposition to _disestablishmentarianism._ (Well, sort of. The Oxford English Dictionary says of _disestablishmentarianism,_ "usu. only as a factitious long word.")

Humpty Dumpty was wrong, because he was talking about an individual's use of a word when speaking to others. If he had been talking about a group's use of a word (and it really needs no more than a group of two!) he would have been completely correct.


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## Nunty

Moderator note:

Even a brief period of time in this forum will offer ample opportunities to see that there is more than one regional variety of English and that vocabulary, syntax, and even grammar differ from place to place. 

Several of the posts in this thread have indicated that in New Zealand _irregardless_ has a far more respectable place in the lexicon than it does in the UK or the US. Attempts to define a regional variety of English that is not one's own as "uneducated" are just silly - and as this forum is "serious, academic and collaborative, with a respectful, helpful and cordial tone," they have no place here.

Thank you.

Nunty


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## gringo70

Loob said:


> I was sure there had been previous threads, but seemingly not (other than the one mentioned by bibbles).
> 
> For me, "regardless" does the job nicely. I have no need for "irregardless"...



I agree with you that _regardless_ does the job nicely. Why complicate our lives with _irregardless_? From the stand point of mathematical logic the prefix *ir *would cancel out the suffix _*less*_ making irregardless the antonym of regardless. It is a word, of course (any bunch of letters we can pronounce is) but does it make sense? It definitely cuts the flow of any text since it makes you stop to think if it means _regardless_ or its opposite.


< Edited to repair quotation formatting.  Cagey, moderator. >


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## DonnyB

There is another, more recent thread - drawing much the same conclusions about the use of this particular word:

Irregardless : usage and acceptability


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