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The Debate over "Irregardless" -- is it a Word?

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

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday July 13 2020, @05:27PM (2 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 13 2020, @05:27PM (#1020494) Homepage Journal

    Things I've learned from authoritative grammar books:

    (1) English texts tend to be more lively with active instead of passive voice. That does not mean we need to ban the passive voice.
    (2) Sometimes splitting an infinitive is the best way to make your meaning clear.
    (3) There's nothing wrong with having a preposition at the end of a sentence.

    Thing I've learned on my own:

    (4) The presence of typos it the second law of thermodynamics applied to text.

    -- hendrik

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2020, @09:20PM (#1020706)

    1) That's generally true, however scientific research papers and mystery novels tend to use a lot more passive voice.
    2) This is true and it's part of why there was never a rule against doing so. In some cases, grammar demands that infinitives be split up.
    3) Yes and as with the previous one, not only is there no rule against doing so, but in some cases you can't avoid it without making the a huge mess of things.

    4) Quite possibly, there's no particular reason to think that entropy shouldn't apply to text.

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:31PM

    by Bot (3902) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @12:31PM (#1021193) Journal

    >(4) The presence of typos IT the second law of thermodynamics applied to text.
    TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER BEEN SPOKEN, especially since these ones were read.

    --
    Account abandoned.