[Leica] Re: "Even us natives don't write English good"

[woc2 at earthlink.net (Bill O'Connell)]

Interesting you use 'irregardless'. I was once soundly chastised by a
friend's boyfriend for using it.  At the time he was in law school and spent
quite a bit of time copying pages from various sources to prove his point.
After seeing it, I did a 'google' on it to see if things had changed in the
past few decades.  Seems not to be the case as copied below:

(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.



-----Original Message-----
 Eric Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 5:27 PM


John:

>Or the use of decimated to imply reduced to a tenth rather than the
>correct meaning of reduced by a tenth.

Irregardless, who is to say what the "correct" meaning is?  Isn't the
correct meaning that which is generally accepted usage?  Language exists to
communicate with each other.  Not to employ a language lawyer to figure out
what the word originally meant and to make sure the meaning never sways.

balance clipped....