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The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares it to other malformed words such a
by daffy 6y ago
The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and
that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares
it to other malformed words such as `television' and
`flammable'. But there seems to be a significant difference
between these and that. While recognizing the malformedness of
these words require knowledge of Greek and Latin, recognizing
that of `irregardless' is trivial for anyone who is proficient
in current English: it is obviously a stupid word, and that
makes it stupider.
- darksaints 6y agoBut that is exactly how language evolves. People say stupid shit often enough and it eventually stops sounding stupid. See also: ain't, firstly, cisgender, etc.
- thechao 6y agoPure conjecture on my part: irregardless is an intensifier of dismissal. It allows the word to start with a vowel. Since (American) English requires exhortations to start with a consonant, it forces the speaker to begin the sound with a glottal stop. Initial glottal stops are markers for interjective cursing, like “‘Asshole!”
- kazinator 6y agoThe conjecture is likely wrong. Some speakers simply reach for irregardless whenever they want to say "without regard" and are never heard using regardless.
- thechao 6y agoI dunno: perhaps irregardless began as an interjection, and then became the norm for certain speakers? Similar to hypercorrection.
- throw0101a 6y ago> and `flammable'. Which has the same definition as inflammable. This has always been inconceivable in my mind.
- lou1306 6y agoSimilarly infuriating fact: in Italian, "infranto" means broken, but "infrangibile" means "unbreakable" (as in glass).
- sjwright 6y agoEven though I know the correct meanings, no matter how hard I try the word “flammable” sounds to me like “able to flame” while “inflammable” sounds like “incapable of flame”. I hate English.
- dkxbdkf 6y agoEnglish is beautiful. I say that as an ESL who speaks Spanish and Italian fluently. English spelling, and etymology are fascinating and closely related. English spelling often retains the original spelling despite changes in pronunciation. Inflammable come directly from the Latin where “in” is not a negation but putting something “in” a state of being, in this case flame.
- lokedhs 6y agoBeauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thus I have no business telling you whether you are wrong or not in your assertion. However, both its grammar and spelling is incredibly ad-hoc. To someone who is a fan of structure (such as a programmer like myself), this is frustrating. I was going to make a comparison to a programming language, but I came to the conclusion that there isn't really a programming language out there that absorbs everything without making it natural in the adopted framework. Like you, I learned English as a second language and even though I can speak it reasonably well, I'm constantly annoyed by its idiosyncrasies.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jt2190 6y ago> it is obviously a stupid word, and that makes it stupider. This is the social signaling aspect of language at work, not the communication part. Human brains can trivially digest the correct meaning of “irregardless”. Using the word, however, marks someone as not having had a “proper” education, and would perhaps brand the speaker as “stupid”, “irregardless” of whether the idea they were expressing was intelligent or not.
- balfirevic 6y ago> Human brains can trivially digest the correct meaning of “irregardless”. It can also understand the meaning of "iregardles", "ireggardless" and "irregardlless". Is that really a sufficient condition for the word to be considered correct?
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoGiven that the purpose of language is to convey meaning, I'd say yes.
- ryandrake 6y agoif meerly "convaying meening" iz the bar then tihs snentenennce is currect english.
- kmm 6y agoYou'll find that people, even those without formal education in English like me, don't generally write like that. I think just reading and writing a lot makes one's spelling naturally converge to the most common one.
- baddox 6y agoExcept if you are actually well-educated then you would know that “irregardless” is widely used to mean the same thing as “regardless” and thus to use it as such would not be a sign of a lack of education.
- 6y ago
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago> it is obviously a stupid word, and that makes it stupider. One might argue that 'stupid' was originally intended to describe a person of low intelligence and because words aren't sentient, it's a misuse of the word. It seems like a stupid argument to make, though.
- ColeyG 6y agoNot commenting on the content of your comment but what the hell is your formatting?
- daffy 6y agoWhat do you mean?