Irregardless is a word sometimes used in place of regardless or irrespective, which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795. [1] The word is mostly known for being controversial and often proscribed, and is often mentioned in discussions on prescriptive and descriptive lexicography.
The origin of irregardless is unknown, but speculation among dictionary references suggests it is a blend, or portmanteau word, of the standard English words irrespective and regardless. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The blend creates a word with a meaning not predictable from the meanings of its constituent morphemes. Since the prefix ir- means "not" (as it does with irrespective), and the suffix -less means "without", the word contains a double negative. The word irregardless could therefore be expected to have the meaning "in regard to", thus being an antonym of regardless. In reality, irregardless is used as a synonym of regardless.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), irregardless was first acknowledged in 1912 by the Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary as originating from western Indiana, [7] though the word was in use in South Carolina before Indiana became a territory. [1] The usage dispute over irregardless was such that in 1923 Literary Digest published an article titled "Is There Such a Word as Irregardless in the English Language?" The OED goes on to explain the word is primarily a North American colloquialism. [7]
The progress of and sentiments toward irregardless can be studied through its description in references throughout the twentieth century. Webster's New International Dictionary (2nd. ed. unabridged, 1934) described the word as an erroneous or humorous form of regardless, attributing it to the United States. Although irregardless had spread to the American lexicon, it was not universally recognized and was missing completely from Fowler's Modern English Usage, [8] published in 1965, neither was irregardless mentioned under the entry for regardless. In the last twenty-five years, irregardless has become a common entry in dictionaries and usage reference books, although commonly marked as substandard or dialect. It appears in a wide range of dictionaries including Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1961, repr. 2002), [9] The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (1988), The American Heritage Dictionary (Second College Edition, 1991), [10] Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary (2001), and Webster's New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition, 2004). [11] The definition in most dictionaries is simply listed as regardless (along with the note nonstandard, or similar). Merriam–Webster even states, "Use regardless instead." The Chicago Manual of Style calls irregardless "[a]n error" and instructs writers to "[u]se regardless (or possibly irrespective)." [12]
Australian linguist Pam Peters (The Cambridge Guide to English Usage, 2004) suggests that irregardless has become fetishized because 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.
The approach taken by lexicographers when documenting a word's uses and limitations can be prescriptive or descriptive. The method used with irregardless is overwhelmingly prescriptive. Much of the criticism comes from the double negative pairing of the prefix (ir-) and suffix (-less), which stands in contrast to the negative polarity exhibited by most standard varieties of English. Critics also use the argument that irregardless is not – or should not be – a word at all, because it lacks the antecedents of a "bona fide nonstandard word." A counterexample is provided in ain't , which has an "ancient genealogy" at which scholars have not leveled such criticisms. [13]
English professor Anne Curzan, writing for The Wall Street Journal , in an article discussing the word, said that objection to irregardless "taps into some deep-seated feelings about language". [14]
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically, which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.
Singular they, along with its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves, is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. It typically occurs with an indeterminate antecedent, to refer to an unknown person, or to refer to every person of some group, in sentences such as:
Webster's Dictionary is any of the US English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by Noah Webster (1758–1843), a US lexicographer, as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in his honor. "Webster's" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for US English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles.
Merriam-Webster, Incorporated is an American company that publishes reference books and is mostly known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD) is a dictionary of American English published by HarperCollins. It is currently in its fifth edition.
The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language works in the abstract. For instance, Fowler characterized usage as "the way in which a word or phrase is normally and correctly used" and as the "points of grammar, syntax, style, and the choice of words." In everyday usage, language is used differently, depending on the situation and individual. Individual language users can shape language structures and language usage based on their community.
In the English language, there are grammatical constructions that many native speakers use unquestioningly yet certain writers call incorrect. Differences of usage or opinion may stem from differences between formal and informal speech and other matters of register, differences among dialects, and so forth. Disputes may arise when style guides disagree with each other, or when a guideline or judgement is confronted by large amounts of conflicting evidence or has its rationale challenged.
A cordwainer is a shoemaker who makes new shoes from new leather. The cordwainer's trade can be contrasted with the cobbler's trade, according to a tradition in Britain that restricted cobblers to repairing shoes. This usage distinction is not universally observed, as the word cobbler is widely used for tradespersons who make or repair shoes.
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British or Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
Oxford spelling is a spelling standard, named after its use by the Oxford University Press, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with the suffix -ize in words like realize and organization instead of -ise endings.
Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged is an American English-language dictionary published in September 1961. It was edited by Philip Babcock Gove and a team of lexicographers who spent 757 editor-years and $3.5 million. The most recent printing has 2,816 pages, and as of 2005, it contained more than 476,000 vocabulary entries, 500,000 definitions, 140,000 etymologies, 200,000 verbal illustrations, 350,000 example sentences, 3,000 pictorial illustrations and an 18,000-word Addenda section.
A pronunciation respelling for English is a notation used to convey the pronunciation of words in the English language, which do not have a phonemic orthography.
Fewer versus less is a debate in English grammar about the appropriate use of these two determiners. Linguistic prescriptivists usually say that fewer and not less should be used with countable nouns, and that less should be used only with uncountable nouns. This distinction was first tentatively suggested by the grammarian Robert Baker in 1770, and it was eventually presented as a rule by many grammarians since then. However, modern linguistics has shown that idiomatic past and current usage consists of the word less with both countable nouns and uncountable nouns so that the traditional rule for the use of the word fewer stands, but not the traditional rule for the use of the word less. As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage explains, "Less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted.”
Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year are words of the year lists published annually by the American dictionary-publishing company Merriam-Webster, Inc. The lists feature ten words from the English language. These word lists started in 2003 and have been published at the end of each year.
Garner's Modern English Usage (GMEU), written by Bryan A. Garner and published by Oxford University Press, is a usage dictionary and style guide for contemporary Modern English. It was first published in 1998 as A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, with a focus on American English, which it retained for the next two editions as Garner's Modern American Usage (GMAU). It was expanded to cover English more broadly in the 2016 fourth edition, under the present title. The work covers issues of usage, pronunciation, and style, from distinctions among commonly confused words and phrases to notes on how to prevent verbosity and obscurity. In addition, it contains essays about the English language. An abridged version of the first edition was also published as The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style in 2000 and a similar version was published in The Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition in 2017. The latter includes three sections titled "Grammar", "Syntax" and "Word Usage", each with several subcategories.
Twat is an English-language vulgarism which means the vulva or vagina, and is used figuratively as a derogatory epithet. In British English, and Irish English it is a common insult referring to an obnoxious or stupid person regardless of gender; in American English, it is rarer and usually used to insult a woman. In Britain and Ireland, the usual pronunciation rhymes with "hat", while Americans most often use the older pronunciation that rhymes with "squat". This is reflected in the former variant spelling of "twot".
Positive anymore is the use of the adverb anymore in an affirmative context. While any more is typically a negative/interrogative polarity item used in negative, interrogative, or hypothetical contexts, speakers of some dialects of English use it in positive or affirmative contexts, with a meaning similar to nowadays or from now on. The difference between negative anymore and positive anymore can be characterized as follows:
This list comprises widespread modern beliefs about English language usage that are documented by a reliable source to be misconceptions.