Yes, Irregardless is a Word

Just don't use it in a job interview.

Hey, did you notice that my Google Sites spellcheck didn't accept irregardless either of the two times I typed it just now? It wants me to replace it with regardless. That's what we call an omen, for you verbal white belts who insist on using irregardless because it's in the dictionary.

Yes, irregardless is a word, and you can find it in a dictionary. But you can also find ain't* and the N word in the dictionary. In fact, a surprising number of offensive slurs and expressions show up in dictionaries. None of that makes it okay to run around using those words.

So it's time for a field trip to NPR for a short but very informative lesson on what dictionaries and lexicographers actually do. The article is called Regardless of What You Think, 'Irregardless' is a Word. It explores why Merriam-Webster placed irregardless in its inventory and the flack they're receiving over it, despite the fact that they list it as a non-standard word.

It's a quick and informative read. Go check it out at NPR.org.

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Bonus Learning

Some people object to irregardless because it's a double negative. That's true, but my main concern has always been that it's a malaprop of the word irrespective, a cinnamon for regardless. Malaprops are brain farts. That is, one day, someone (probably drunk) went to reach for irrespective, and their brain failed them by producing the close-but-no-cigar malaprop irregardless.**

For all of my adult life, poor communication skills have been the chief complaint employers feed back to colleges of business.  The use of malaprops, eggcorns, and such are important red flags that lead employers to feel this way about our interns and graduates. 

Malaprops usually occur as the result of an annoyingly far-too-common tendency for business students, young officers, and other neophytes to outrun their vocabularies in a professional setting. They want to impress their professors, colonels, and employers with big ten-dollar words, but they don't really own any. So they spew something that resembles a big word they've heard, and out pops a malaprop. 

And, just as the boss suspected, they're idiots.

So, for me, the problem with malaprops is that they undermine my mission. I'm trying to help you break through this self-imposed glass ceiling that comes from them ungoodly communicable skills of yourn. Just this past week, I've had students emit head-scratchers like "supposably," "applyable," the Texas classic "might could," and (ready for this?) "regardlessly." As a neophyte, you cannot swing that dead cat in a white-collar work environment (especially a university) without hitting someone who is ready to dismiss you as uneducated or illiterate. If you're an established organizational badass like me, you can get away with it. But for you newbies, it's often fatal.

So help me help you.

My position

• You can say irregardless or any other word you like, even made-up words like farthermore and enrichenate. It's fun. It's Shakespearean.

• But, please, don't run the risk of being thought uneducated when it matters. It's exhausting and ultimately pointless to try and justify irregardless to everyone of import who calls you out on it. Just use irrespective or regardless in those situations.

• And stop telling me that there exists some canonical tenet of PUG that allows malaprops to serve as valid cinnamons for the original words. That's never been true.

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