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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

#21

Post by skissane »

gsk22 wrote: post #4
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #3

As the article points out, irregardless is pretty uncommon. I'll be much more horrified when Merriam-Webster begins defining terrorism the way that the Americans often use it in common discourse, i.e. , the attacker's acts were terrifying and the victims and community were terrorised, therefore he's a terrorist.

Maybe I'm just an ignorant American, but what is the issue with that definition? Lack of an explicit political goal?

Yes, “terrorism” has a political objective.

Randomly killing people for non-political reasons, such as done by some mass shooters or serial killers, is not terrorism, even if in some cases it kills more people than many acts of terrorism do.

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

#22

Post by ukj »

keiferski wrote: post #19
ukj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you'll get no further than 'A terrorist is a person who engages in terrorism'. And then the debate is still exactly where we left off. Was that person engaging in X, or was he engaging in Y? X = Terrorism, Y = Freedom fighting The main issue is that your attitude towards the activity/person is encoded in the language you are using to describe it.

I don’t think this is accurate or a charitable interpretation of what I said. I am making a distinction between actions and nouns. I hold that it is not controversial to say certain actions are considered terroristic actions and certain actions are considered freedom fighting actions. Often, the same people engage in both, and combined with our tendency to want to assign people in noun classes (He is an X), this resu…

Why? Exactly as you proposed:

An X is somebody who engages in X.

If you are engaging in terrorism then you are a terrorist. If you are engaging in freedom fighting then you are a freedom fighter.

You say you are engaging in freedom fighting. I say you are engaging in terrorism.

The distinction is merely your description of your behavior vs my description of your behavior.

Perspective.

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

#23

Post by jasode »

The actress Jamie Lee Curtis complained about MW's addition of "irregardless" because she misunderstands the purpose of that dictionary: to document and describe actual language usage. Therefore, if "irregardless" is in wide common usage, it gets added as an entry.

Dictionaries that are more descriptive than prescriptive: The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (e.g. "whatevs", "chillax", other slang, etc added to OED: https://www.google.com/search?q=newest+words+in+Oxford+Engli...)

A dictionary that is more prescriptive (more conservative and avoids adding new non-standard words): The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Heritage_Dictiona...)

tldr: most people don't know the underlying rationale of dictionaries

some Youtube links...

deep link of Kory Stamper @ Merriam-Webster talking about adding nonstandard word "irregardless" to the dictionary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLgn3geod9Q&feature=youtu.be...

Anne Curzan (advisor role on Usage Panel) for American Heritage Dictionary explaining "what makes a word 'real'?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6NU0DMjv0Y

[to downvoters: it would be helpful if you state what's incorrect in my post; I don't want to give out bad information. Thank you.]

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

#24

Post by keiferski »

ukj wrote: post #22
keiferski wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this is accurate or a charitable interpretation of what I said. I am making a distinction between actions and nouns. I hold that it is not controversial to say certain actions are considered terroristic actions and certain actions are considered freedom fighting actions. Often, the same people engage in both, and combined with our tendency to want to assign people in noun classes (He is an X), this resu…

Why? Exactly as you proposed: An X is somebody who engages in X. If you are engaging in terrorism then you are a terrorist. If you are engaging in freedom fighting then you are a freedom fighter. You say you are engaging in freedom fighting. I say you are engaging in terrorism. The distinction is merely your description of your behavior vs my description of your behavior. Perspective.

I just added more to my comment. But again, you seem to be misunderstanding my point entirely.

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

#26

Post by ukj »

keiferski wrote: post #24
ukj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Exactly as you proposed: An X is somebody who engages in X. If you are engaging in terrorism then you are a terrorist. If you are engaging in freedom fighting then you are a freedom fighter. You say you are engaging in freedom fighting. I say you are engaging in terrorism. The distinction is merely your description of your behavior vs my description of your behavior. Perspective.

I just added more to my comment. But again, you seem to be misunderstanding my point entirely.

I understand what you are saying. You are not seeing that it doesn't work.

Instead of calling you a 'terrorist' (noun). I can simply describe your actions/behaviour as 'terrorising' (verb).

Whether I classify you into a noun-class or a verb-class is moot.

I am still classifying your behaviour as terrorism, not freedom fighting.

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

#27

Post by lightgreen »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #3

As the article points out, irregardless is pretty uncommon. I'll be much more horrified when Merriam-Webster begins defining terrorism the way that the Americans often use it in common discourse, i.e. , the attacker's acts were terrifying and the victims and community were terrorised, therefore he's a terrorist.

I’m also concerned MW already considers “homosexuality” offensive since a couple of months ago.

It looks like MW starts supporting lefts redefinition of the language rather than providing a reference of the established language.

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

#28

Post by JohnStrangeII »

ukj wrote: post #8
keiferski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a problem because it bases the definition on the feelings of the recipients and not on the actions of the perpetrators.

Both terrorists and freedom fighters act the same way. In the battlefield of narratives perspective matters.

No, not according to a reasonable definition of terrorism. It's terrorism if a group is intentionally attacking civilians (non-combatants) for political goals. Freedom fighters may or may not be terrorists, depending on whether they intentionally attack civilians or only hit military targets. What it means to intentionally attack someone is regulated by the Doctrine of Double Effect, is based on distinguishing between side effects and intentional goals of an action. It's a tricky topic and there is leeway for interpretation, but It's not as if a definition in this area could or should never lead to controversies.

Unfortunately, this definition is rarely used, because it doesn't match the political goals of states. First, it follows from the definition that there is widespread state terrorism. Second, countries that send military occupation forces to other countries have a vested interest to brand asymmetric warfare against their military as terrorism, but this is not covered by the definition.

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

#29

Post by keiferski »

ukj wrote: post #26
keiferski wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just added more to my comment. But again, you seem to be misunderstanding my point entirely.

I understand what you are saying. You are not seeing that it doesn't work. Instead of calling you a 'terrorist' (noun). I can simply describe your actions/behaviour as 'terrorising' (verb). Whether I classify you into a noun-class or a verb-class is moot. I am still classifying your behaviour as terrorism, not freedom fighting.

At some point, you still have to define what the actions are, which is my argument. By actions I mean specific things, not the broad amorphous label of "terrorizing."

As I said, if you narrow it down to specific actions (shooting, bombing, protest, etc.) the distinction between the two seems far more clear. I don't think anyone would claim that killing a crowd of civilians is somehow a freedom-fighting act, even if it is done by someone who mostly engages in freedom-fighting actions.

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

#30

Post by bryanrasmussen »

jasode wrote: post #23

The actress Jamie Lee Curtis complained about MW's addition of " irregardless" because she misunderstands the purpose of that dictionary: to document and describe actual language usage. Therefore, if "irregardless" is in wide common usage, it gets added as an entry. Dictionaries that are more descriptive than prescriptive: The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary . (e.g. "whatevs", "chillax", othe…

I guess I'd just assume she had a prescriptive personality type and preferred the dictionary she happened to look at to have the same view of language.
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