Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Grammar Girl: IRREGARDLESS

POSTGG


Um...wow. I've been so caught up in my own little world that I just realized as I sat down to write this that I missed the last two weeks' GG segments. Huh.

Well, thanks to Bacon Butt, who sent me the link, I have a nice little copy/paste action I'll stick in here about a word I can't stand - IRREGARDLESS.

My mother uses it constantly, even though I tell her she's negating the actual meaning of REGARDLESS by using it. She doesn't care. She thinks she sounds more edumacated, methinks, when she uses it.

She's wrong. End of.

So, don't make the same mistake, Lambchops. Read this bit by cracked.com, and learn:

Irregardless

People think it means:
Regardless.

Actually means:
Not a damned thing.

This is not a word. Now, we have no problem with making up words (if a particular scent can only be described as "fartalicious," we reserve the right to call it so). The problem with this one is "regardless" already means something isn't worth regard (that's why the "less" is there) so adding the "ir" to it means... it's worth regarding again? Who knows.

Should you care?
If there's ever a time to speak up, this is probably it. Mainly because this is one of those words used almost exclusively by people trying to sound smarter than they are. Remind them that when using fake words to at least try to use ones that have some kind of meaning, if they want to avoid unnecessary cockulance when speaking.

Dick Rating:
As in, "How big of a dick are you if you insist people use it the right way?"

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