''Irregardless'' is a word sometimes used in place of ''regardless'' or ''irrespective,'' which has caused controversy since the early twentieth century, though the word appeared in print as early as 1795.''City Gazette & Daily Advertiser'' (Charleston, South Carolina). June 23, 1795, p. 3.

Origin

The origin of ''irregardless'' is not known for certain, but the speculation among dictionary references suggests that it is probably a

blend A blend is a mixture of two or more different things or substances; e.g., a product of a mixer or blender. Blend Blend may also refer to: * Blend word, a word formed from parts of other words * ''Blend'' (album), a 1996 album by BoDeans * ...

, or

portmanteau word A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsstandard English words ''irrespective'' and ''regardless''. The blend creates a word with a meaning not predictable from the meanings of its constituent

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...

s. Since the prefix ''ir''- means "not" (as it does with ''irrespective''), and the suffix -''less'' means "without", the word contains a double negative. The word ''irregardless'' could therefore be expected to have the meaning "in regard to", thus being an antonym of ''regardless''. In reality, ''irregardless'' is used as a synonym of ''regardless''. According to the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...

'' (''OED''), ''irregardless'' was first acknowledged in 1912 by the '' Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary'' as originating from western

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

,Murray, James, et al., eds. ''The Oxford English Dictionary.'' 2nd Ed. Vol. VIII. Oxford:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1989. though the word was in use in South Carolina before Indiana became a territory. The usage dispute over ''irregardless'' was such that in 1923 ''

Literary Digest ''The Literary Digest'' was an influential American general interest weekly magazine published by Funk & Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, ''Public Opinion'' and '' Current ...

'' published an article titled "Is There Such a Word as Irregardless in the English Language?" The ''OED'' goes on to explain the word is primarily a North American colloquialism.

Appearance in reference books

One way to follow the progress of and sentiments toward ''irregardless'' is by studying how it is described in references throughout the twentieth century. ''

Webster's New International Dictionary ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's ...

'' (2nd. ed. unabridged, 1934) described the word as an erroneous or humorous form of ''regardless,'' and attributed it to the United States. Although ''irregardless'' was beginning to make its way into the American lexicon, it was still not universally recognized and was missing completely from '' Fowler's Modern English Usage,'' Fowler, H nryW[atson.html"_;"title="tson.html"_;"title="nryW[atson">nryW[atson">tson.html"_;"title="nryW[atson">nryW[atson_and_Sir_Ernest_Gowers.html" ;"title="tson">nryW[atson.html" ;"title="tson.html" ;"title="nryW[atson">nryW[atson">tson.html" ;"title="nryW[atson">nryW[atson and Sir Ernest Gowers">tson">nryW[atson.html" ;"title="tson.html" ;"title="nryW[atson">nryW[atson">tson.html" ;"title="nryW[atson">nryW[atson and Sir Ernest Gowers, eds. ''Fowler's Modern English Usage.'' 2nd Ed. New York:

, 1965. published in 1965, neither was ''irregardless'' mentioned under the entry for ''regardless''. In the last twenty-five years, ''irregardless'' has become a common entry in dictionaries and usage reference books, although commonly marked as substandard or dialect. It appears in a wide range of dictionaries including ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged'' (1961, repr. 2002),Gove, Phillip B., ed. ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged.'' Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 1981. ''The

Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology Barnhart is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Berta Barnhart, member of Seattle City Planning Commission *Brian Barnhart, American auto racing executive *Clarence Barnhart (1900-1993), American lexicographer * Clyde Barnhart (1 ...

'' (1988), ''The

American Heritage Dictionary American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

'' (Second College Edition, 1991),Berube, Margery S., ed. ''The American Heritage Dictionary.'' 2nd College Ed. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

, 1991. ''Microsoft

Encarta ''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later article ...

College Dictionary'' (2001), and ''Webster's New World College Dictionary'' (Fourth Edition, 2004).Agnes, Michael, ed. ''Webster's New World College Dictionary.'' 4th Ed. Cleveland, Ohio:

Wiley Publishing John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in ...

, 2004. The definition in most dictionaries is simply listed as ''regardless'' (along with the note ''nonstandard'', or similar). '' Merriam–Webster'' even states, "Use ''regardless'' instead." ''

The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writi ...

'' calls ''irregardless'' " error" and instructs writers to " e ''regardless'' (or possibly ''irrespective'')." Australian linguist Pam Peters (''The Cambridge Guide to English Usage'', 2004) suggests that ''irregardless'' has become

fetishized A fetish (derived from the French , which comes from the Portuguese , and this in turn from Latin , 'artificial' and , 'to make') is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over othe ...

because natural examples of this word in ''

corpora Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...

'' of written and spoken English are greatly outnumbered by examples where it is in fact only cited as an incorrect term.

Prescriptive vs. descriptive

The approach taken by

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretica ...

s when documenting a word's uses and limitations can be

prescriptive Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes infor ...

descriptive In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013). All acad ...

. The method used with ''irregardless'' is overwhelmingly prescriptive. Much of the criticism comes from the double negative pairing of the prefix (''ir-'') and suffix (-''less''), which stands in contrast to the

negative polarity In linguistics, a polarity item is a lexical item that is associated with affirmation or negation. An affirmation is a positive polarity item, abbreviated PPI or AFF. A negation is a negative polarity item, abbreviated NPI or NEG. The linguistic ...

exhibited by most standard varieties of English. Critics also use the argument that ''irregardless'' is not – or should not be – a word at all, because it lacks the antecedents of a "bona fide nonstandard word." A counterexample is provided in ''

ain't The word "ain't" is a contraction for ''am not'', ''is not'', ''are not'', ''has not'', ''have not'' in the common English language vernacular. In some dialects ''ain't'' is also used as a contraction of ''do not'', ''does not'' and ''did not''. ...

'', which has an "ancient genealogy" at which scholars have not leveled such criticisms.Soukhanov, Anne H., ed. ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.'' 3rd Ed. Boston:

, 1992.

References

{{reflist English words Nonstandard English grammar Linguistic controversies