

| Subject: | Linguistic fun.....NVC |
| From: | Ben McCafferty |
| Date: | Thu, 6 Mar 2003 07:48:53 -0700 |
From American Heritage (www.dictionary.com): irregardless adv : in spite of everything; without regard to drawbacks; "he carried on regardless of the difficulties" [syn: regardless, irrespective, disregardless, no matter, disregarding] [Probably blend of irrespective, and regardless.] 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. [Buy it] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And then there's flammable vs. inflammable: flam�ma�ble �� (�P�)��Pronunciation Key��(flm-bl) adj. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [From Latin flammre, to set fire to, from flamma, flame. See bhel-1 in Indo-European Roots.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ flamma�bili�ty n. flamma�ble n. Usage Note: Historically, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. However, the presence of the prefix in- has misled many people into assuming that inflammable means �not flammable� or �noncombustible.� The prefix -in in inflammable is not, however, the Latin negative prefix -in, which is related to the English -un and appears in such words as indecent and inglorious. Rather, this -in is an intensive prefix derived from the Latin preposition in. This prefix also appears in the word enflame. But many people are not aware of this derivation, and for clarity's sake it is advisable to use only flammable to give warnings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ And finally, my favorite: 3 entries found for momentarily. mo�men�tar�i�ly �� (�P�)��Pronunciation Key��(mmn-t�r-l) adv. 1. For a moment or an instant. 2. Usage Problem. In a moment; very soon. 3. Moment by moment; progressively. Usage Note: Momentarily is widely used in speech to mean �in a moment,� as in The manager is on another line, but she'll be with you momentarily. This usage rarely leads to ambiguity since the intended sense can usually be determined on the basis of the tense of the verb and the context. Nonetheless, many critics hold that the adverb should be reserved for the senses �for a moment,� and the extended usage is unacceptable to 59 percent of the Usage Panel. Ben McCafferty ben@volkscafe.com Volks Cafe 1823 Soquel Avenue Santa Cruz, CA 95062 831-426-1244 http://volkscafe.com
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