2023-05-26 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด I – Irregardless & regardless

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Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง irregardless = ‘ir-i-GAHRD-lis’

ออกเสียง regardless = ‘ri-GAHRD-lis’

 

Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary

IRREGARDLESS & REGARDLESS

Regardless of what you have heard, 

“irregardless” is a redundancy. 

The suffix “-less” on the end of the word 

already makes the word negative. 

It doesn’t need the negative prefix “ir-” 

added to make it even more negative. 

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
ir·re·gard·less   (ĭr′ĭ-gärd′lĭs) adv. Nonstandard

Regardless. [Probably blend of irrespective (of) and regardless.]

 

Usage Note: 

Irregardless is a word 

that many people mistakenly believe 

to be correct in formal style, 

when in fact it is used chiefly 

in nonstandard speech or casual writing. 

 

The word was coined in the United States in the early 1900s,

presumably from a blend of irrespective and regardless.

 

Many critics have complained that it is a redundancy, 

the negative prefix ir- 

duplicating the negativity of the -less suffix. 

 

Perhaps its reputation as a blend of ill-fitting parts 

has caused some to insist that it is a "nonword," 

 

a charge they would not think of leveling 

at a nonstandard word with a longer history, such as ain't. 

 

Since people use irregardless, 

it is undoubtedly a word in the broader sense of the language, 

but it has never been accepted in Standard English 

and is virtually always changed 

by copyeditors to regardless. 

 

The Usage Panel has roundly disapproved of its use 

since polling began; in 2012, 

90 percent found the sentence 

A scientist investigating a social issue should seek 

to find out the truth, 

irregardless of its political implications to be unacceptable.

 

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary,

usage: 

irregardless is considered nonstandard 

because of the two negative elements ir- and -less. 

 

Those who use the word, 

including on occasion educated speakers, 

may do so from a desire to add emphasis.

 

irregardless first appeared in the early 20th century 

and was perhaps popularized 

by its use in a comic radio program of the 1930s.

 

Dictionary.com

USAGE NOTE FOR IRREGARDLESS

Some people use 

Irregardless to mean the same thing as regardless, 

but it is considered nonstandard 

because of the two negative elements ir- and -less. 

It was probably formed on the analogy of such words as irrespective, irrelevant, and irreparable. 

 

Those who use it, including on occasion educated speakers, 

may do so from a desire to add emphasis. 

 

Irregardless first appeared in the early 20th century 

and was perhaps popularized by its use 

in a comic radio program of the 1930s.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Usage Notes

Is 'Irregardless' a Real Word?

It has come to our attention lately 

that there is a small and polite group of people 

who are not overly fond of the word irregardless. 

 

This group, who we might refer to 

as the disirregardlessers, 

makes their displeasure with this word 

known by calmly and rationally 

explaining their position 

 

The reason we, and these dictionaries above, 

define irregardless is very simple: 

it meets our criteria for inclusion. 

This word has been used by a large number of people (millions) for a long time (over two hundred years) 

with a specific and identifiable meaning ("regardless").

 

The fact that it is unnecessary, 

as there is already a word in English 

with the same meaning (regardless) is not terribly important; 

it is not a dictionary's job to assess 

whether a word is necessary before defining it. 

The fact that the word is generally viewed as nonstandard, 

or as illustrative of poor education, 

is likewise not important;

 

dictionaries define the breadth of the language, 

and not simply the elegant parts at the top.

 

We must confess 

that of the charges leveled against irregardless, 

the one asserting that it is not actually a word puzzles us most. 

 

If irregardless is not a word, then what is it, 

and why is it exciting so many people who care about words?

Of course it is a word. 

You may, if you like, refer to it 

as a bad word, a silly word, a word you don't like, 

or by any one of a number of other descriptors, 

but to deny that a specific collection of letters 

used by many people for hundreds of years 

to mean a definite thing is a word is to deny the obvious.

 

So why do we define irregardless, 

 

but omit unregardless from our dictionary? 

One reason is that of scale: 

for every unregardless found in print 

there are a hundred or more examples of irregardless.

 

Another reason is consistency of intent: 

the people writing unregardless 

do not appear to all have the same meaning in mind. 

 

Sometimes it functions as a synonym of regardless, 

and other times it appears to carry 

the meaning of "unthinking, or uncaring." 

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Frequently Asked Questions About irregardless

Is irregardless a word?

Yes. It may not be a word that you like, 

or a word that you would use in a term paper,

but irregardless certainly is a word. 

 

It has been in use for well over 200 years, 

employed by a large number of people 

across a wide geographic range and with a consistent meaning.

 

That is why we, and well-nigh every other 

dictionary of modern English, define this word. 

Remember that a definition is not 

an endorsement of a word’s use.

 

Does irregardless mean the same thing as regardless?

Yes. We define irregardless as "regardless."

 

Many people find irregardless to be a nonsensical word, 

as the ir- prefix usually functions to indicates negation; 

however, in this case it appears to function as an intensifier.

 

Similar ir- words, while rare, do exist in English, including irremediless ("remediless"), 

irresistless ("resistless") and 

irrelentlessly ("relentlessly).

Is irregardless slang?

 

We label irregardless as “nonstandard” rather than “slang.” 

 

When a word is nonstandard 

it means it is 

“not conforming in pronunciation, 

grammatical construction, 

idiom, or word choice to the usage 

generally characteristic of 

educated native speakers of a language.” 

 

Irregardless is a long way from winning general acceptance 

as a standard English word. 

For that reason, it is best to use regardless instead.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Irregardless

Many people are of the opinion that using irregardless unironically (irironically?) 

makes a person appear less intelligent.

 

You may decide this for yourselves, 

for the indicators of intelligence are peculiar 

to each of us, and vary widely. 

 

For instance, 

some lexicographers have been known 

to claim that it is loudly declaiming 

“irregardless is NOT a word” 

that makes someone appear less intelligent.

 

Every major modern dictionary 

defines irregardless, because it is a word. 

 

Anyone who has a problem with this 

can meet us behind school later today 

to settle this the old fashioned way: 

with copious citations of use 

in published, edited prose over the past 225 years.

 

'Irregardless'

Irregardless is included in our dictionary 

because it has been in widespread 

and near-constant use since 1795. 

 

We must warn you, gentle readers, 

that there are some other words 

which appear for the first time this very same year 

that we define in our dictionary. 

 

Yes! We have allowed entry to such Johnnies-come-lately as bewhiskered, citizenry, and terrorism, 

all of which have their earliest written evidence 

the same year as irregardless.

 

We do not make the English language, 

we merely record it. 

 

If people use a word with consistent meaning, 

over a broad geographic range, 

and for an extended period of time 

chances are very high that it will go into our dictionary.