

| Subject: | Proper word usage, was Re: engine conversion [is this a Friday thing come early?] |
| From: | Marc Perdue |
| Date: | Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:10:14 -0500 |
Thank you, Andrew, for pointing out the error of my ways. Because you asked about it, I went to www.dictionary.com and looked it up and came up with 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." I will amend my evil ways and never use the term again, irregardless of whether I'm writing formal or casual style. Yee haw, Marc "Unencumbered by the grammatical process, speller extraordinair, and purveyor of logical absurdity" Perdue Andrew Grebneff wrote: > > irregardless > > not regardless?
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