Irregardless, it's not a word!

For those of you who know me well, you know that one of my biggest pet peeves is when people use the word "irregardless". Let me tell you right now, it's an abomination of a word and should not be used under any circumstances in any day or age. It's a walking contradiction. Don't believe me? Lets examine it a little bit closer.

It is a combination of two words, "irrespective" (–adjective without regard to something else, esp. something specified; ignoring or discounting), and "regardless" (-adjective having or showing no regard; heedless; unmindful (often fol. by of)). Both of which contain a negative prefix and suffix respectively (ir- meaning "not" and -less meaning "without"). So when you blend these words together, you have a double negative. Not without regard. Thats not not wrong!

I get that idioms are an accepted part of language, and I can even understand a mutated idiom (such as "all the sudden", which is a phonetically hurried "all of a sudden"). I will even accept that language is just a form of expression, and if you make a sound and people know what you mean, then mission accomplished. But that still doesn't make it right! If I were to write "do u want 2 go 2 dinner 2nite @ 6?", sure you'd understand what I meant, but it doesn't make me sound like less of an idiot.

I submit that language is about more than just communicating what you mean. If all we had to do was communicate in a basic raw form, then it would be accepted to just scream until someone gave you what you wanted (think baby here). But it isn't. We're educated, civilized (mostly) people. By allowing the adoption of blatantly incorrect words, we're letting the idiocracy (thanks Mike Judge) win. Language is a beautiful, eloquent, gift, and it makes me shake my head to hear anyone so unwilling to use it as such.

So please, just say no to irregardless. Irregardless of what people may think, its just wrong.