8 July 2020
A message popped up in my Facebook feed the other day which read,
In case you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, Merriam-Webster just officially recognized “irregardless” as a word.
Since then, I’ve seen it pop up multiple times on Twitter, retweeted by a number of people, many of whom should know better.
There are so many things wrong with this statement, it’s hard to know where to begin. The facts are wrong. It displays a complete misunderstanding not only of dictionaries but of language itself. It reflects a reactionary impulse to reject anything that does not conform to one’s worldview. It is elitist, and the impulse to enforce “correct” speech, or tone policing, is a tried and true tactic used to suppress speech of marginalized peoples.
First the facts. Merriam-Webster has not just added irregardless to its dictionary. It has been in their dictionary since 1934, and people have been using the word since at least 1795. Furthermore, almost every dictionary includes it. I don’t even know of one that doesn’t. And most of those dictionaries include a usage note cautioning against the word’s use. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s:
Irregardless is a long way from winning general acceptance as a standard English word. For that reason, it is best to use regardless instead.
Second, it displays a misunderstanding of dictionaries. Most dictionaries, including all of the good ones, are descriptive in their editorial policies. They seek to describe how words are used. They are not prescriptive, i.e., they don’t dictate how words should be used. There is no “official” dictionary or academy of English that puts its imprimatur on particular words or uses. Dictionaries do not “officially recognize” words. They just include the ones that they have determined will be useful to their readers. People keep using irregardless, and that’s why all those dictionaries include it.
Third, it displays a misunderstanding of language itself. Of course, irregardless is a word. It has a recognizable pronunciation and spelling. It has a commonly understood meaning; no one misunderstands someone who uses it. (And it has a single meaning, unlike some words that no one objects to, like non-plussed, biweekly, peruse, cleave, or sanction, which have meanings or connotations that contradict one another and are often genuinely confusing.) The objection seems to be is that the meaning as used is illogical in that it is contrary to the meaning conveyed by its component parts. But language is not logical. It is an accretive, crowd-sourced creation, and the meaning of its words change over time. As lexicographer Peter Sokolowski has observed, people don’t object to December because it doesn’t denote the tenth month of the year.
Many people believe there is such a thing as “correct” or “standard” English, but such a thing does not exist. There are many different Englishes. There are hundreds of millions of mutually intelligible idiolects that we group into a dialect or language that we call English. And an individual uses different words and phrases in different social contexts. How I address my students is different than how I talk with my friends down at the pub. The language I use in a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed journal is different from the language I use on this website. And there is a myriad of regional and ethnic dialects, themselves sub-groupings under the all-encompassing rubric of English.
Irregardless is one of those lexical bête noires that continually receive attention when other words, which are just as or even more objectionable, pass unnoticed. Irregardless is a rallying point, a hill that those who consider themselves linguistic stalwarts have chosen to die on. They think they are defending English from the barbarian hordes, but just like the fall of Rome, the belief doesn’t accord with the facts. The barbarians didn’t conquer Rome; it never “fell.” The so-called barbarians simply became Romans. There is no “well of English undefiled” to defend.
In the case of irregardless, this is just sad. Use of the word is not restricted to any particular group or segment of the population. But the tendency toward this elitism can have sinister results when it is directed at the speech and writing of marginalized classes and ethnic groups. It ends up suppressing voices and means of expression. It excludes those who don’t speak in the “approved” or “official” manner. And the real objection to “non-standard” words is that “those people” are being let into the club. The barbarians are being allowed to become Roman.
Having said all this, do I recommend people use irregardless? No, although I don’t get riled up when I hear someone use it, and I am sure to have used it myself in unguarded moments—and I suspect most of those objecting to it have as well. And in fact, I do correct it on my students’ papers when they use it. I do this because there is one good reason for not using it. That is precisely because so many people object to it, and there is an unobjectionable alternative available in regardless. Careful writers do not use words or phrases that would distract users from the message that they wish to convey. If the reader stops and considers the writer’s command of the language, then the writer has failed. (Good writers will often use distinctive words and phrases that call attention to or reinforce their message, but that’s a different thing.) If people would stop objecting to it, then it would become a perfectly good word to use, and the difference between irregardless and regardless would be same as between while and whilst or in regard to and in regards to, a matter of personal preference and style.
Sources:
Merriam-Webster.com, s.v. irregardless, accessed 8 July 2020.
Sokolowski, Peter. Tweet, 7 July 2020.
