Talk:Irregardless

Fun
I wrote this as a paper at college for a History of the English language class. I'm submitting it just for fun and to see what will happen. I know the tone and style are not what is normally found in wikipedia so any help and editing would be appreciated.Itaylor35 20:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Please read No original research and make appropriate changes if necessary, SqueakBox 20:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Interesting and well written. I think this is a good page to have. I agree with Squeakbox though, it needs to be changed a lot to turn it into an encyclopedic article about the word, rather than an essay. See if you can find similar "words with history" or whatnot on Wikipedia and check out the way those have been written. Another thing I noticed, as I was trying to encyclopedia-ize it in my head while reading, was that it seems to me you wrote it too well because I found it that really hard to do. I'd suggest re-writing it based on what you know about the word instead of using your essay as a base. And I was looking at irregardless in Wiktionary and noticed it had irrespective as a synonym. Maybe that could be worked into this page too? :)--Ben

Pop Culture References
The Parlor short film has a humorous reference to "irregardless" that I think would be fitting:

Person 1: "Irregardless shes a twat."

Person 2: "Irregardless isn't even a word."

Person 1: "Yes it is, it means without lack of regard."

Cheesy 08:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Does it mean "without lack of regard" or "not without regard"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.175.160.134 (talk • contribs) 05:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Neither, and both, irregardles, literally by word parts it is no regard without and open to parsing as (no regard) without or no (regard without).   WurmWoode  T   19:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Progress, and some work to be done
I've worked a bit to clean this up somewhat, though I have done nothing to change the tone or content of the article substantially, beyond some standardization and minor copy-editing. Following are some notes to the original author particularly, and future editors in general, on some things I think need to be done (which is not to say that this is all that needs doing). Hope that helps someone. --Kgf0 22:09, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It is not part of the etymology of the word regardless, however this is often a misconception because both words hold the same meaning. In serious need of refinement
 * You're right it was a weird sentence, I cut out the second part because I don't think it is needed
 * Instead, it has no legitimate antecedents in either standard or nonstandard varieties. Requires citation
 * Cited Soukhanov
 * Irregardless is primarily attributed to North America, and was first acknowledged in 1912 by the Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary as originating from western Indiana. Since Wentworth is not cited, anouther source si required
 * Cited it from OED edited by Murray
 * Webster’s New International Dictionary (2nd. Ed. Unabridged) contained the first entry of irregardless Websters New 2nd. not cited, source required
 * Changed, I had it worded incorrectly
 * Two references are provided for Fowler's Modern, both the 1965 edition and Burchfield's 1996 update; however, only the former is referenced in the text. If the earlier edition was not actually consulted, and the information came from the later edition, the earlier cite should be removed, and the footnote changed to point to Burchfield.  Alternately, a citation such as the following could be given once:
 * Fowler, H.W., and Sir Ernest Gowers, eds. Fowler’s Modern English Usage. 2nd Ed. 1965. qtd. in R.W. Burchfield, ed. The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
 * Got rid of 1996 edition as it was only used for background info and not mentioned specifically in article
 * The following citations were unused and have been removed; they can easily be replaced (copying the code from this page if necessary) if needed to source any of the above:
 * Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language. 2nd Ed.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
 * Follett, Wilson, ed. Modern American Usage, A Guide.  New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.
 * Gamer, Bryan, ed. A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
 * Hobson, Archie, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Request for Comment
How does this merit an encyclopedia entry? It seems more like a candidate for the dictionary. If it belongs here at all it ought to carry a caution. This is a term that meets quiet disapproval and may get its user stigmatized, especially when it appears in writing in a formal context. Durova 17:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think this article goes quite a long way toward making that very point clear, to a degree a dictionary (including Wiktionary) would not. The article is certainly more than a dictdef, at any rate. --Kgf0 19:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that Wikipedia would benefit from a section under English Language for misused or unaccepted words (i.e., ain't, nucular). Irregardless would fit well there. Should we make such a section? Great article, btw. --Happylobster 20:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * This article is an expanded dicdef. An encyclopedic article can only be written about concrete or abstract concepts that go beyond the description of the word. "Irregardless" is not a concept beyond its usage as a word, just like any other adjective. I do not find it merited to have a separate article for this at Wikipedia. Please expand the very meager Wiktionary article instead of adding trivia to the wrong project.
 * And, no, I definetly don't think we need more lists of words in our main language articles. It's really not representative or interesting enough to be used there. And it definetly has nothing to do with "nucular", which is strictly a non-standard spoken variation, not a separate word.
 * Peter Isotalo 08:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Two points: if you strongly feel that this text should be in irregardless, it is GFDLed, so you are free to put it there as well; and if you feel that strongly that this article is inappropriate, you are also free to WP:AFD it and see what the community consensus is. Doing them both in that order is the most likely path toward getting your wish.  Meanwhile, I disagree with your premise entirely (except the part about not needing more lists, where I could not agree more), despite how often I've voted to move articles to Wiktionary; for support, I point ironically to the entries for portmanteau and neologism.  While this comparitively new article needs work before it gets as far as those longstanding ones, this similarly addresses issues around the subject in ways that are not appropriate to a dictionary. I further contend that every article on this site is an "expanded dictdef" to varying degrees.  --Kgf0 10:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Portmanteaus and neologisms are abstract concepts in of themselves, just like loanwords or tautologies. This is just a slight oddity of an adjective, and any word, no matter how inconspicuous or even dull has at least a few paragraphs of linguistic information and etymology in them. This doesn't mean we should pump every last, pedantic sentence out of them here. And, really, I can't see how any article about an adjective could possibly belong in an encyclopedia. Unless, of course, you want to completely turn the idea of what an encyclopedia is upside down, something which is more anarchy than wiki.
 * And the reason I'm not AfD:ing the article is because AfD is a sham. Almost anything that isn't an outright lie, too offensive or an obvious attempt to use Wikipedia for publicity stunts is kept, which means it's not functioning properly.
 * Peter Isotalo 14:28, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for "concrete or abstract concepts that go beyond ", vous me l’ôtez de la bouche (you steal me that one). What do Quality street (even the play), Paris (from any country) or Me, Myself, and I (four songs) do in an ... encyclopedia ? Should Diderot, one of us encyclopedists, be still alive, somersault to his grave would he not. Still he had enough humour to write his Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown.
 * If those are so irregardless in Wikipedia, why not irregardless by itself.


 * Note that such words are not so badly formed as they are said. Some examples do exist : Unfathomless ... "A number is nonnegative if and only if it is greater than ... ". Antimatter is also funny.


 * The trend of thought depicted by the article we are discussing is real matter, it gave me a desire to know more : that’s our goal. Would there be a linguistics article showing such ways of a word’s life and condemnations and giving the aforementioned as example !


 * Words - the same applies to articles and leaves and us - are born, grow, shine, and die sometime. Ok, that’s philosophy. We have what this century deserve : a huge web of knowledge with hubs everywhere and an utopian circumference.
 * Can a bunch of valiant webaddicts expel to a dictionary, a tourist guide or a list of art creations, nine tenth of what we find here ? Did not Diderot’s friends, encountering harassing persecution, promote their ideas through religion articles in the first Encyclopedia ?
 * The toil of analysing a concept is nothing, if you do not analyse the world and your own idea of the world. I spoke (an' hub).


 * Results - about 72,400 for webaddict, in a search engine : it shoud be found also in a wiki. Could Wikipedia redirect to Wiktionary instead of returning 'none' as results ? I did not coin the word and hope it is not disrespectful Harvestman 19:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

In short, that's because this is a dictical Trojan horse that was never meant to enter a lexicon by any rightminded individual, but by a rapscallious cur with devious intent. What reveals it, is the date. In 1795, the American colonies were, in all likelihood, overrun by British agents. I'll allow for probability, but I will not grant you that education suffered so terribly much during this time, because Common Sense by Thom Paine sold hundreds of thousands of copies. So, it would either have had to have been intended as a joke against the rhetorically inclined "hand of the market" or an unseemly coarse vulgarity at the same hand. Most important here, the following of rules of logic being the watermark of a learned, no man of wide understanding would easily accept a word with two morphemes ruling each other out. There is a comical suggestion to be made to copper erosion, which is called irr in Scandinavian countries (church roofs periodically going green because of maintenance) and the superfluous prefix is close to the, previously, colloquial "err", as in «'tis only human to err», which probably are the morphemes that it piggybanked off of the most, aside from ... air and heir and ar-yan (igjen is again in Norwegian and pronounced eeyen). It's still far too re-diculous to be taken upon second inspection, but I'm sure the meanings contained therein averted many a gaze nevertheless - the exact purpose of it to begin with, I am convinced. In those days, to see it was to believe it. It was said of scientists that, if they couldn't draw it, they couldn't explain it, which, of course, was nothing but yet another measure of control taken by the landed aristocracy. Consider what Joseph Conrad said, (paraphrased) "the power of sound will always be superior to the power of argument". Audun Nilsen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:FE0:C320:E5B0:9F3:27BD:3F3D:434B (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

word blending
'Irregardless' appears to be a blending of the words 'irate' and 'regardless' which together indicate a particular or specific form of heedlessness --  "hot-button" emotional reactions which may exacerbate the effects of ignorance or slough-off behavior.

'Regardless' indicates issues which cause alienation or self-esteem affective states; while 'irregardless' adds a component of censure which might cause disability or death. beadtot 11/12/2005 21:04, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Pop culture
I believe that this word is more than a barabrous neologism -- it has entered the popular culture, on many people's pet peeves list. And anway, irregardless of all that, WP still has articles on standard English words, right? See here [] for amusing discussion in local alternative weekly. IronDuke 04:42, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

AfD?
I've read the article and the above discussion, and this looks like a clear candidate for deletion. It's not a word. Wikipedia shouldn't have dicdef entries for actual words, so why should it have a page for a fake one?

As an aside, I think that the article itself is not well-written and would require a complete rewrite to even sound like an encyclopedia entry. But the include/delete decision comes first. | Keithlaw 00:36, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Addressing first the accusation "not a word": 513,000 Google hits, presence in dictionaries (American Heritage 4th, Princeton WordNet, M-W Online & 9th Collegiate, plus all those cited in the article itself), though admittedly noting that it is "non-standard." Do tell, how many times must a word be used before you call it a word?  If I may quote Webster by way of Britannica: "The most frequently repeated remark about it is that 'there is no such word.' There is such a word, however."  Secondly, addressing "dictdef": Just because an article is about a word, doesn't make it a dictdef, and this certainly goes well beyond defining the word; rather, it describes the history of its usage, addresses its non-standard status and how that is shifting over time.  Finally, "not well-written": Can it be improved?  Sure, just like the majority of articles here; that's why its a Wiki, and why we don't protect pages that are "finished."  I could as easily point out that, say, Molten chocolate cake is a cross between a dictdef and a how-to, and that it is similarly unencyclopedic.
 * In short, I think WP:AFD is utterly uncalled for on this article, as I think the policy page shows, even if it is a dictdef. At worst, it is perhaps in need of Move to Wiktionary if the article does not go beyond what they would accept (FWIW, I think it does, having read their policy, and I am an editor there too), or perhaps cleanup.  I also note, for the record, that while I did work to clean this article some, I am not the original author.  --KGF0 ( T | C ) 17:47, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Wow, what an unnecessarily nasty reply. Attacking articles that someone who dares to disagree with you has created? How weak.
 * "Irregardless" has been around for eighty years and still isn't an accepted part of the language. Considering how quickly new words do become accepted into the ever-changing English language, I think it's safe to say that this one isn't going to make the cut.
 * As I said, laying that debate aside, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, nor is it a usage guide. If you want to move it to Wiktionary, slap a Move to Wiktionary tag on it; you'll get my vote, and I'm more than willing to help edit it to conform to Wiktionary standards. There are AfD's all the time for articles that are just dicdefs, so there's plenty of precedent for my call for an AfD. Just today, Undetermined was nominated for deletion as a dicdef. Even if the "irregardless" article has to be scaled down for inclusion in Wiktionary, it would be more appropriate there than it is here.
 * As for my comment that it's not well-written, I pointed out that that criticism was subordinate to the question of inclusion in Wikipedia. Your strawman argument about pages being "finished" is utterly ridiculous, as I never made any such claim. I specifically said that the page needed a major rewrite, but that the question of deletion should come first.
 * And finally, the molten chocolate cake contains a section on the history of the dish, and another on the scientific reasons why the dish works. Of course, that page has only had one editor so far, since it's just a few hours old. Furthermore, there's no controversy among culinary experts over whether or not molten chocolate cake is a legitimate dish. It's not even a relevant comparison, and as I said, it's an unnecessarily personal one as well. | Keithlaw 18:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Look, the word in question is clearly not fake, although it is a word that has generated an unusual amount of controversy. Speaking for myself, I find the word loathesome and abhorrent, but it is increasingly making inroads into our language. A person who was wondering how a word that appears to negate itself could exist in the English language would find valuable information here about how this came to be. This article's placement here is absolutely appropriate. IronDuke 19:18, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Whether the word is "fake" or not has no relevance. The point is that it's an adjective, and adjectives are the domains of dictionaries, without exception. Even the quirky ones. For tactical reasons I'll simply ignore that there are other articles about adjectives. They're here because people haven't quite grasped the concept of what an encyclopedia actually is. At the very least, the article should be moved to the status of irregardless in English or something equally verbose, but I'm sure you understand why that's an even sillier option than just transwikiing the relevant bits and deleting the rest.
 * You won't ever get rid of it by AfD:ing, though, because AfD is simply not functioning properly. It's a keep-machine, not a proper review of the appropriateness of individual articles.
 * Peter Isotalo 14:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Interesting as an aspect of language behavior
The treatment of the word 'irregardless' is arguably interesting as a case study in sociolinguistics or prescriptive linguistics, but I'm not sure I see how an encyclopedia article can be made of it.

A few detailed comments:
 * Irregardless is a word that caused controversy amongst scholars

Is there really any scholarly controversy?
 * It has gained recognition but is however not a standard word of the English language.

Unclear what "gaining recognition" means. Does it mean "being recorded in a dictionary"? What does "a standard word" mean? Perhaps a word that is not accepted as good usage by most educated people?
 * It is often a misconception that it is part of the etymology of the word regardless.

In what way could it be "part of the etymology" of the word regardless? Is the article claiming that some people think that "regardless" is derived from "irregardless" by shortening? --Macrakis 03:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Couple of points: Is there really any scholarly controversy? I don't know about "scholarly," but there is plenty of controversy. See [], [], [], and [].


 * Unclear what "gaining recognition" means. Does it mean "being recorded in a dictionary"?  What does "a standard word" mean?  Perhaps a word that is not accepted as good usage by most educated people? The answer to your last question is "Yes."


 * In what way could it be "part of the etymology" of the word regardless? Is the article claiming that some people think that "regardless" is derived from "irregardless" by shortening? You're right, the etymology comment is murky, at best.


 * I would ask those of you who think this word is so silly that it does not belong here to consider a hypothetical case: imagine a non-native speaker of English who comes across the word irregardless and is confused that the word appears to negating itself. They could Google it, but they would come up with many different websites, claiming variously that the word is a "real" word, that it isn't a real word, that it is real, but non-standard, etc. They could broaden their understanding by coming to wikipedia and seeing an article on the word that presents the merits of every position. In some ways, I think this is what WP is all about. The fact that the word is so controversial is what makes it worth including where, say, the word "regardless" is not worth including.

(You won't ever get rid of it by AfD:ing, though, because AfD is simply not functioning properly. It's a keep-machine, not a proper review of the appropriateness of individual articles. I have noticed this also. Why do you suppose AfD isn't working?) IronDuke 19:02, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I would ask those of you who think this word is so silly that it does not belong here to consider a hypothetical case: imagine a non-native speaker of English who comes across the word irregardless and is confused that the word appears to negating itself. That's what a dictionary is for. A dictionary entry can concisely summarize the usage of the word or controversy over its status. None of that belongs in an encyclopedia; I have never even thought of using a foreign-language encyclopedia for help with a word I don't know in that language. I think a Move to Wiktionary tag is appropriate here. And as I said above, I'm more than happy to help with the transwiki.


 * As for the AfD problem, I've noticed in one debate on an article I tagged that people are voting without actually reading the article or reading all of the prior arguments on the article. Wikipedia encourages people to vote on AfDs and RfCs in the Community Portal, but if visitors won't take the time to research before voting, maybe we're better off if they don't vote. | Keithlaw 20:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I would have no problems with this article being moved to Wiktionary under the "usage" section. I think that this subject definately belongs there and that a shorter stub could be included in a page such as List of English words with disputed usage. Itaylor35 22:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, sociolinguistics, yes! Irregardless is a cuss word, and its use generates more bad feelings than the standard cussing litany. The speaker of scatology is (unless armed or dangerous) merely ignored. The irregardlesser is transcatagorized from "possible expert" to "assumed twit" on the evidence of a single non-comic utterance of the word.

Personally, I use "disregardless" instead. Oh, how I love neologilizing. Snezzy 14:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The word "irregardless" is used fairly frequently in "flyting" in the UK, along with the word "opporchancity", which shares the feature of two words with complementary meanings combining to create a new, expressive word, and the phrase "a retrograde step backwards." People used to the more prescriptive US English sometines fail to see the advantages of word play of this kind, but their language would be greatly nefit from this sort of thing (did you see what I did there? - "nefit" isn't really a word - oh, never mind!). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.215.129 (talk) 17:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Move to Wiktionary
I think it is quite clear that this belongs to Wiktionary, if anywhere. Could anyone tell me what kind of information-seeker would look up the word irregardless in an encyclopedia? Wikipedia is not a dictionary, or a usage or jargon guide. I have added the Move to Wiktionary-tag. &mdash; mark &#9998; 09:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's more than a dictionary definition. &mdash; Instantnood 13:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It's less than an encyclopedia entry. In fact, it's just a dictionary definition with a lot of fluff around it. It would be a fine essay for the original writer's personal website. It doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. As Mark D says above, no one would ever look up a word in an encyclopedia - that's what a dictionary (or perhaps a thesaurus) is for. The Wiktionary entry should link to offsite discussions of the word's history and etymology, and this page should be deleted. | Klaw Talk 19:36, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

don't move This belongs here. Any detailed etymology and detailed discussion of a verifiable controversy is encyclopedic. Lotsofissues 18:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, controversies we bring to build the world and some can search how it's built. Harvestman

Shouldn't need to be moved
Because irregardless is an element of controversy in today's society it shouldn't have to move to Wiktionary. It would be great to see this word entered there, but it deserves an article here as well do to its place in an on-going debate not between some proffessors or authors of Webster's but because conversations on the correctnes of iregardless pop up in every day culture. Now the WP article could use some real work, it should include a little more than "not everyone's sure if this is a real word" but is ought not to be deleted. Gatherton 01:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * No-one argues for its deletion, the content is fine but it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. The author himself says above that he would be fine with including it in a Wiktionary entry under 'usage'. And that's where it belongs. &mdash; mark &#9998; 07:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Just as a point of order, it's been a long time and many edits since any one person qualified as "the author" on this article. There's enough people on either side of this issue to make it clear that there is a lack of consensus.  I'm generally a deletionist myself, but IMHO it needs improvement rather than moving or tossing.  Keep in mind WP:NOT as well.   --KGF0 ( T | C ) 13:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ascribing a new meaning
It's been suggested to me that irregardless could or actually does mean "regarding X, but despite X." In this sense, the word is somewhere between "regarding" and "regardless", in that the speaker is indicating that they are not entirely dismissive of whatever X is, but their point remains the same. Does anyone else feel that this could be a potential use? QuinnHK 17:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Irregardless of what any of us think about it, unless you can find a reliable source to back up your assertion, that would be original research without doubt. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 07:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Just a nitpick
Maybe we should call it a term and not a word in the initial sentence of the initial paragraph...just an idea. --207.216.10.77 17:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Emphatic negative
I'm unsure as to common usage, but I personally use 'irregardless' as an emphatic negative, in the same vein as 'inflammable' and 'deprivation'. The negative prefix just acts as a further negation, intensifying its meaning (as opposed to a negation of a negation).

To wit: -a + -a = -2a

Such is my logic, anyway. -- Sasuke Sarutobi 22:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Looking at the article on double negatives, one could portray cases where a double negative resolving to a negative as similar to this word, in that the double negation is used as an emphatic.


 * For instance, compare 'we don't need education' with 'we don't need no education'. The latter is used as an emphatic form.


 * And yes, I know I added the heading 'Double negative as negative'. That is on account of this word (and by extension, article) leading me to think about this all.
 * -- Sasuke Sarutobi 01:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * So then "undetached" means "so freakin' detached you wouldn't believe it"? ;)  Elmo iscariot (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, because "un" is a different prefix. "Ir" is a form of the prefix "in", which as I point out below has a long-standing double meaning, while "un" does not. Fool4jesus (talk) 20:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Also don't forget 'irrigate,' 'irradiate,' and a bunch of other examples where 'ir' is used solely as a positive (in both of those cases, it means "upon" as opposed to "not"). 98.210.153.178 (talk) 15:39, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And "ir" is not even a prefix - it's a form of "in". And "in" has emphatic meanings in words like "incarcerate" and "inflammation." I would argue that this usage of "in" does have long roots, all the way back to Latin. Fool4jesus (talk) 19:57, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think Pink Floyd's 'we don't need no education' was necessarily a double negative used to emphasise the negative so much as it was ironic (condemning education with a "grammatically incorrect" turn of phrase). The content and the form of the sentence are both rejecting education. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.1.49.89 (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Double negatives in common language
Removed from the 'Origin' section: However, such double negatives are already found in the language in such words as debone and unravel. I don't see how those are double negatives. However if you have better examples, please add them--Yitscar (talk) 11:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * They are double negatives because "bone" and "ravel" originally meant the same thing as "debone" and "unravel"; the de- and the un- were added to the words later out of "ignorance" or "illiteracy" or the usual complaints people make about language changes.
 * : To bone something would be to put the bones back into something, and ravelling something up is pretty much the same as rolling something up. De and Un turns these words into their opposites, so they're not double negatives. !!!Chris!!! (talk) 18:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know why you're talking about what these words "would be" instead of looking them up in a dictionary, which provides the definitions that are being talked about. The words later acquired the opposite meanings through back-formation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.146.175.92 (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Computing
Irregardless appears in the NewtonScript apis for the Apple Newton PDA: ''PlaySoundIrregardless(soundFrameRef) Plays a sound, independent of the user sound preference settings''

See [[Newton Programmer's Ref 2.0]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.140.169.22 (talk) 15:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Edited
The summary section was entirely opinion, so I removed it. Just because it's in the dictionary doesn't make it a grammatically correct word if the source has it to show otherwise. MSJapan (talk) 19:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

No edit wars, please
If this article keeps appearing in my workspace I'm going to wind up requesting full edit protection while a consensus is hammered out. As an English minor, I don't have any problems stating that "irregardless" is NOT a word that is in standard usage, and my personal feeling is that it should never come into standard usage, as it is a self-contained double negative. That's as far as I go for now.Alan (talk) 19:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There haven't been any major edit wars on this article, as far as I can tell, besides revert wars against page blankers and other miscreants. Graham 87 00:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Irregardless is a word
Language is fluid. Oxford English Dictionary types argue a word in common usage is not a word, because its not in their book, but they can't accept that every other word in their book was completely made up at some time as well. People create words, and bastardize the language, and as such terms enter common usage, they become words and methods of communicating ideas. You know what I mean when I say 'irregardless', don't you? Why is that? Because it is common widespread usage. Its a written and verbal method used to communicate an idea... in other words, a word.

If someone wants to argue that irregardless is not a word, then I can argue 'byte' is not a word, as well as 'shampoo', 'airplane', 'refrigerator', 'xerox', 'photocopy', 'telegraph', 'seamonkey', 'interstate', 'cartoon', and on and on and on... as well as every other word in the dictionary... claustrophobia, agoraphobia, eremophobia, stuff... do you think ancient Britains used any of those words... not to mention the whole ||English language|| is nothing but a bastardized form of German, Latin, and Norse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.11.248 (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You're referring to the differences between the prescriptive and descriptive approaches to the study of language. This page is for discussing Wikipedia's article about "irregardless", as opposed to the word itself.  If you have any general questions about language you might be interested in the Language reference desk. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 01:26, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It might be a word, but it is just f*cking WRONG. Okay! It's like "misunderestimate". It deserves this wiki article to explain to idiots that use the word that it is an uneducated way of saying "regardless". End of story. 180.92.211.33 (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC) (xQx)
 * No it is not like "misunderestimate." See my comments above on the prefix "in". Presumably you don't think "incarcerate" is also like "misunderestimate." Fool4jesus (talk) 20:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

'byte', 'shampoo', 'airplane', 'refrigerator', 'xerox', 'photocopy', 'telegraph', 'seamonkey', 'interstate', 'cartoon', and whatever other words you want to come up with, are not even in the same dimension as 'irregardless'. 'irregardless' does not have even a slice of the merit these other words have; this is because it is a severe misunderstanding of a very basic word (words, even) that requires more effort to write or type. Words like 'ain't', 'ya'll' and 'alright' have far more merit than 'irregardless', because they are essentially contractions.

"language is fluid" is going to get this language killed. It only exists as opposition to a supposed complete lockdown on language, which doesn't actually occur. This discussion has only ever been allowed between these two extremes. The idea that we need to think about the words we create is unthinkable to everyone in both camps; at no point would 71.266.11.248 ever consider the actual purpose of 'irregardless'.

People who do this clearly act out of anti-intellectualism, viewing Oxford and such as works by the hands of old codgers who apparently can't get with the times. This is foolish, absolutely foolish; change for the sake of change, without any sort of review, is fundamentally and eventually worthless and deleterious. 71.76.240.132 (talk) 23:20, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

German equivalent "nichtsdestotrotzr"
I'd just like to mention that there is a German equivalent "nichtsdestotrotz" built from "trotzdem" and "nichtsdestoweniger". It started as an academic joke but has since found broad usage, although it is still considered nonstandard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.8.211.63 (talk) 06:34, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

When was it added to each dictionary?
When was the word "irregardless" added to each dictionary? And when did each dictionary's notes about it change? I think these details are important. Misty MH (talk) 08:53, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Criticism section
A lot of this article is criticism or rebuttals thereof, and indeed probably the existence of this article is due to the controversy over this word. There is relevant secondary coverage to gather enough of content for a criticism section, or something along those lines. Even with no new content added to the article, it would be good to move the current criticism there for organizational purposes. Graham87 doesn't think so, and I recognize the validity of this opinion even though I disagree. What does everyone else think? Should the criticism its own section, or should it (i.e., the current criticism in the article) be incorporated throughout? I agree with Jimbo's take that "In many cases [criticism sections] are necessary, and in many cases they are not necessary. And I agree with the view expressed by others that often, they are a symptom of bad writing". However, this is a special case: the reason why this article is notable is the linguistic debate its caused (there's no article for 'regardless'.) I'm not steadfast in my opinion on this.  Chamaemelum  (  talk  ) 04:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)