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Subject:Proper word usage, was Re: engine conversion [is this a Friday thing come early?]
From:Marc Perdue
Date:Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:10:14 -0500

Thank you, Andrew, for pointing out the error of my ways.  Because you
asked about it, I went to www.dictionary.com and looked it up and came
up with this usage note:

"Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage
in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech
or casual writing.  Coined in the United States in the early 20th
century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an
improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical
absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a
single term.  Although one might reasonably argue that it is no
different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it
has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to
be so."

I will amend my evil ways and never use the term again, irregardless of
whether I'm writing formal or casual style.

Yee haw,
Marc "Unencumbered by the grammatical process, speller extraordinair,
and purveyor of logical absurdity" Perdue

Andrew Grebneff wrote:

> >  irregardless
>
> not regardless?

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