What better way to step into the blogsphere than with an explanation for  my chosen title?  All the cool kids are doing it!  Why can’t I? 

Whether or not irregardless is, in fact, a real word is not the issue here. It’s easy enough to see that it is clearly illogical, probably the red-headed stepchild of ‘irrespective’ and ‘regardless’. Why THOSE two ever shacked up is beyond me.

Here’s the deal, people.

1) Irregardless is generally considered a nonstandard synonym for ‘regardless’.

HOWEVER.

2) The prefix ir- means ‘not’ and the suffix -less means ‘without’. Now, what is the rule with double negatives? Oh, they become a positive? You don’t say. So, this unloved little word isn’t really a synonym for ‘regardless’? Tragic, truly tragic.

3) In its first appearances in dictionaries, irregardless was listed as an erroneous or humorous synonym for regardless. In modern dictionaries, it is almost never listed as an erroneous or humorous usage and is often allowed to remain in edited texts.

So, as a society, we’ve obviously lost our sense of humour and our ability to figure out double negatives. Let’s not even talk about what that says for our collective math skills. If that is NOT a sign of the impending apocalypse, I don’t want to know what is.

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Hi, guys! I’m obviously tardy to the blogging party, but I promise I’ll catch on eventually. I spent most of my ‘net-life leeching off of people and putting together personal websites with black and white photography and personal poetry that I hope is never seen again. Obviously, I had a bad case of being 16 (sometimes I still do, even at 23).