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“Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

economist.com

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Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#121

Post by swiley »

marcosdumay wrote: post #83
swiley wrote: post #58

The popularity of the word “irregardless” demonstrates a property of human thought and socialization that’s very important to most people here: that the majority of people (at least those that speak English) are perfectly happy copying other people’s behavior without asking why. More complex examples of this come from studies where people struggle to communicate the difference between Boolean operators (specifically…

> copying other people’s behavior without asking why Yielding to a shared meaning is the entire point of language.

It’s not the shared meaning that I’m talking about but its thoughtless acceptance.

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#122

Post by cafard »

"""(It's regardless, Caroline, not irregardless," Lorena said gently. Caroline huffily replied that regardless was a footless, weak word and got you nowhere, that on the other hand you threw in the word irregardless and won any argument hands down."""

Dawn Powell, The Locusts Have No King

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#123

Post by sjwright »

dkxbdkf wrote: post #116
sjwright wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I know the correct meanings, no matter how hard I try the word “flammable” sounds to me like “able to flame” while “inflammable” sounds like “incapable of flame”. I hate English.

English is beautiful. I say that as an ESL who speaks Spanish and Italian fluently. English spelling, and etymology are fascinating and closely related. English spelling often retains the original spelling despite changes in pronunciation. Inflammable come directly from the Latin where “in” is not a negation but putting something “in” a state of being, in this case flame.

English is exceptionally beautiful. And I hate it.

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#124

Post by throwawayexodus »

Jedd wrote: post #71

I recall my mum, it must have been in the 1980's, engaging in much eye-rolling and tut-tutting at our (Australia) then prime minister, Bob Hawke, using the word 'irregardless'. Bob was ostensibly quite charismatic, but no one could accuse him of being an especially thoughtful communicator. In retrospect it's fairly typical behaviour for less literate types to adopt a word that sounds sophisticated beyond their standa…

It's particularly ironic to trying to make usage of 'irregardless' seem like reaching for unearned language skills since it is a real word, being several hundred years old. You could benefit from looking into the actual standing of this word - is it possible that you're the one who's reaching?

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#125

Post by tech2 »

dgb23 wrote: post #70
tech2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is the intent. If the intent of the act is the death (or other outcome) of a group of individuals then the act would be mass murder. If however the intent of the act is to use these acts to cause terror (the deaths are merely a means to that end) then the act is terrorism. Terror has been a tool of a number of political groups over the years. An easy example would be when the IRA bombing campai…

I like this definition very much. However, would you for example include propaganda, which is specifically designed to spread fear? I always associated terrorism with physical violence.

I think it's an interesting line, and depends on the propaganda. I imagine at some point lawyers would need to get involved to argue the minutiae.

I can't say for sure and would really need decent examples.

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#126

Post by kazinator »

mjburgess wrote: post #107
kazinator wrote: post #78

Merriam-Webster labels the word as "nonstandard" and recommends that regardless be used, all the while assuring readers that "irregardless" is indeed a word that has been in use by English speakers for "well over 200 years" and by "a large number of people across a wide geographic range and with a consistent meaning". And, note, that same dictionary makes no disparaging remarks about the abuse of "literally" as a gen…

> The abuse of "literally" is more recent than "irregardless". It certainly is not. The complaints are recent. This usage is hundreds of years old. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...

I strongly suspect that a new class of abuse is recent.

literally is actually reasonable as an intensifer for a figurative situation. I.e. the speaker is asking you to forget that you're just using an extreme figure of speech for a situation that is actually mild, but instead imagine it literally happening. I.e. the situation I'm describing is in fact so intense, that please pay attention to the figure of speech, since it is utterly fitting.

What we have now is literally just being applied randomly where there is no figure of speech, or not even a plausible figure of speech, as in:

> I literally just moved here from New York last week; do you know where I can get a decent bagel?

Here, "literally" doesn't inform us that a plausible metaphor is actual ("moved here from New York" is not a common figure of speech with a special meaning, and is vanishingly unlikely to be interpreted as such), and doesn't ask us to get a more intense sense of a metaphor by imagining it as actually happening: the move actually happened, that's all.

The word is just a morsel of pure verbiage.

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#127

Post by ColeyG »

daffy wrote: post #50

The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares it to other malformed words such as `television' and `flammable'. But there seems to be a significant difference between these and that. While recognizing the malformedness of these words require knowledge of Greek and Latin, recognizing that of `irregardless' is trivial for anyone who is profi…

Not commenting on the content of your comment but what the hell is your formatting?

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#128

Post by Jedd »

throwawayexodus wrote: post #124
Jedd wrote: post #71

I recall my mum, it must have been in the 1980's, engaging in much eye-rolling and tut-tutting at our (Australia) then prime minister, Bob Hawke, using the word 'irregardless'. Bob was ostensibly quite charismatic, but no one could accuse him of being an especially thoughtful communicator. In retrospect it's fairly typical behaviour for less literate types to adopt a word that sounds sophisticated beyond their standa…

It's particularly ironic to trying to make usage of 'irregardless' seem like reaching for unearned language skills since it is a real word, being several hundred years old. You could benefit from looking into the actual standing of this word - is it possible that you're the one who's reaching?

Ironic?

There's plenty of words from several hundred years ago that are no longer considered part of current language(s). In any case, I don't believe Bob was uttering the word out of a charming fondness for etymological anachronisms, so much as pretentious ignorance.

Re: “Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words

#129

Post by daffy »

ColeyG wrote: post #127
daffy wrote: post #50

The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares it to other malformed words such as `television' and `flammable'. But there seems to be a significant difference between these and that. While recognizing the malformedness of these words require knowledge of Greek and Latin, recognizing that of `irregardless' is trivial for anyone who is profi…

Not commenting on the content of your comment but what the hell is your formatting?

What do you mean?
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