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posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 13 2020, @11:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the First-to-Fall dept.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/06/887540598/the-debate-over-the-word-irregardless-is-it-a-word

All right. Let's settle something here. The word irregardless - is it a word or is it not a word? Well, this is a debate that Merriam-Webster is now weighing in on in a tweet saying that it is, in fact, a word. And that has led to a whole lot of reaction online.

Merriam-Webster has confirmed that "irregardless" is a word in the dictionary, despite concerns from teachers that it is not.

So fellow Soylentils, irregardless of my opinion, what do your think?

See Also:
Is 'Irregardless' a Real Word?
Definition of irregardless


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 13 2020, @12:18PM (22 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 13 2020, @12:18PM (#1020248)

    Webster observes usage patterns. Irregardless of the idiocy of covfete, if enough people use it with a commonly understood meaning - it, too will become a word.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @12:59PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @12:59PM (#1020273)

    Indeed. If there's one thing that history has demonstrated again and again, it's that lazyness and ignorance always triumph in the end.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by PaperNoodle on Monday July 13 2020, @01:43PM

      by PaperNoodle (10908) on Monday July 13 2020, @01:43PM (#1020290)

      Dang youngster hooligans bastardizing the pure essence of language with short hand hodgepodge gobbledygook!

      What will the youth corrupt next? Kpop? Twerking? Fortnite? Memes!?!?! The future is bleak.

      --
      B3
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday July 13 2020, @07:46PM (2 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday July 13 2020, @07:46PM (#1020608) Journal

      Forsooth, people nay longer knoweth how to speaketh correctly.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday July 13 2020, @09:37PM (1 child)

        by Thexalon (636) on Monday July 13 2020, @09:37PM (#1020726)

        Stulti non intelligere bona verba.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:35AM

          by Bot (3902) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:35AM (#1021159) Journal

          "NON POSSVNT INTELLIGERE"
          AUT
          "NON INTELLIGVNT"

          --
          Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:05PM (#1020688)

      So, I take it you would prefer to refer to oranges as those orange colored things that grow on trees and are generally green on the outside with orange on the inside and can be juiced, rather than orange.

      Interesting, but I think I'll stick to using the word orange.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by richtopia on Monday July 13 2020, @03:03PM (8 children)

    by richtopia (3160) on Monday July 13 2020, @03:03PM (#1020336) Homepage Journal

    English is a living language for better or worse. On the whole, I hope new rules and relaxing of grammar rules lets the language become more accessible.

    Alternatively, we could have a council of old folks dressed up in fancy uniforms to formally decide how the language is to be defined. Kinda sounds eliteist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @08:44PM (#1020669)

      council of old folks dressed up in fancy uniforms

      I assumed that was hyperbole, but checked the link:

      Uniform

      The official uniform of a member is known as l'habit vert, or green clothing. The habit vert, worn at the Académie's formal ceremonies, was first adopted during Napoleon Bonaparte's reorganization of the Institut de France. It consists of a long black coat and black-feathered bicorne, both richly embroidered with green leafy motifs, together with black trousers or skirt. Further, members other than clergy carry a ceremonial sword (l'épée).

      The members bear the cost of their uniform themselves. The robes cost around $50,000, and Amin Maalouf said that his induction cost him some $230,000 overall.

      So the only nit a can pick, is you could have said:

      council of old rich folks dressed up in fancy uniforms

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 13 2020, @09:48PM (5 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday July 13 2020, @09:48PM (#1020741)

      What grammar rules are we even talking about? The allegedly unbreakable rules some people think exist for English grammar stem from British academics trying to make English more like Latin, when most English speakers and writers who have ever lived have broken most of those rules at least occasionally. Seriously, I want you to imagine your grade-school English teacher evaluating the grammar of, say, Mark Twain or James Joyce or Walt Whitman, and tell me what kind of grade you think either of them would get.

      And that's also why it's ridiculous to claim that some dialects of English are "wrong": They fulfill all the functions of language perfectly well (clear communication between humans), and the only problem is that some stuffy guys in Oxford and Cambridge about 150 years ago decided to declare those forms of language didn't match what they thought was "proper" English.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @10:32PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @10:32PM (#1020783)

        You say that, but what passes for acceptable grammar for children, now, is vastly inferior to Twain. No teachers are marking "He drank quickly" to "He quickly drank", literally none, as a trivial and easy to verify example.

        Communication is streamlined by standards - standards of vocabulary, grammar, and style, at least - and disregarding those standards, when not for artistic power, reduces available power in that channel.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:12AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:12AM (#1020847)

          Different. The word you were looking for was different.

          As an aside, has there ever been an example (prior to modern times), where a language has degraded and ended up unfit for purpose?

          • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:44AM

            by Bot (3902) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:44AM (#1021164) Journal

            systemd's DSL, hopefully.

            --
            Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:22AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @01:22AM (#1020897)

          He drank quickly is the preferable form if you don't want to sound ignorant. It's acceptable, but not normal. Subject + verb + adverb has been with English since English was German.

          People don't normally say he quickly drank unless they're going to add an object, in which case it would probably be he quickly drank water. But even then you can say, "He drank the water quickly." and still have proper grammar. Most of the "correct grammar" you were taught was never required, not even when communicating in a formal setting. Literally all the best writers break those rules regularly with no ill-effect.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:06PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:06PM (#1021543)

          Grammar is, and always has been, bullshit. English is incredibly flexible, and nearly any sentence structure can be used for effective communication. All the idioms, borrowings from other languages, inconsistencies, and dialects just add flavor.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @07:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @07:01PM (#1021422)

      Alternatively, we could have a council of old folks dressed up in fancy uniforms to formally decide how the language is to be defined. Kinda sounds eliteist

      I commented here that irregardless becoming a word was gay and seems my comment was removed...

      Seems like someone here has decided how language is to be defined? I'm sure my usage of gay was not obscure[1] ;)

      [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=That%27s%20Gay [urbandictionary.com]

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @03:20PM (4 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday July 13 2020, @03:20PM (#1020358) Journal

    Typical grammar nazi -- you spelled covfefe wrong.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 13 2020, @03:40PM (3 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 13 2020, @03:40PM (#1020390)

      Are you attributing the "proper" spelling to a senile old man's fumble-finger tweet? I hope it takes more than that to coin a new word.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Monday July 13 2020, @06:34PM (2 children)

        by hemocyanin (186) on Monday July 13 2020, @06:34PM (#1020560) Journal

        Apparently it does not. I'd bet at least half the population has heard of covfefe by now. Problem is definition though.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 13 2020, @06:37PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 13 2020, @06:37PM (#1020563)

          If I were Webster, I'd wait for both definition to emerge, and for the Great Cheeto to get out of the headline cycle before deciding that the word has "stuck." Otherwise, they'd be off chasing Urban Dictionary trends...

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by http on Monday July 13 2020, @10:38PM

          by http (1920) on Monday July 13 2020, @10:38PM (#1020790)

          "I'm running low on adderall"

          --
          I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 13 2020, @04:42PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 13 2020, @04:42PM (#1020435) Journal

    Someone should investigate that covfefe again. Was it a precursor to covid19? What did the president know, and when did he know it?

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @11:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @11:53PM (#1020838)

      It's clearly a chemical formula for the antidote. Carbon, oxygen and 2 iron atoms. 'V' had me stumped remembering the periodic table.

      * Vanadium sounds like some pretty toxic stuff - don't be swallowing that based on the trolling on an internets.