Irregardless Magazine has been offering up stuff and nonsense for the literary mind for exactly 10 years now. And yet, somehow we’ve never covered the etymology of the word irregardless. Was it too meta? Or just a missed opportunity? Regardless, now seems like as good a time as any to correct that mistake.
So let’s get into it, shall we?
What We Mean When We Talk about ‘Irregardless’
Of course, whenever anyone uses the word irregardless, what they really mean is ‘without regard’. Look up irregardless in the dictionary, and the first definition will be ‘regardless’.
But if we were to break down what irregardless should mean based on its parts, it really should mean, ‘without without regard’. So…like… regardful? Or like super regardless? Tim Moynihan at CNET says,
“You can think of the word in one of two ways: (1) it should mean the opposite of ‘regardless,’ or something along the lines of ‘keeping the facts in regard,’ or (2) it could mean ‘regardless of the fact that something is regardless.’ The latter of the two is like double-super regardless, and it’s the meaning I prefer. ‘Irregardless’ really, really doesn’t care what the facts are or what you think.” 1
In this way, irregardless becomes a sort of “Mobius Strip of words”, because as Moynahan says, “irregardless of the rules of grammar, ‘irregardless’ is a word.… It is a text-based Chuck Norris, roundhouse-kicking everything else in the dictionary into submission.”
Regardless of how you like to think of the word irregardless, according to the dictionary, irregardless falls under that most frustrating of words: a word that somehow means the opposite of what it should mean (just like the word factoid).
Regardful or Without Regard?
Though some like to interpret irregardless‘s suffix and prefix as meaning ‘without without regard’ and therefore ‘regardful’, opponents will say, ‘English isn’t math. Two negatives don’t make a positive.’
But actually…in English two negatives do often make a positive. Look at the word antidisestablishmentarianism. The antidisestablishmentarians opposed the disestablishment of the Anglican church. Therefore, they supported the establishment. The double-negative creates a positive.
But of course, this isn’t always the case. Look at the words inflammable and flammable. They mean the same thing—just as regardless and irregardless do—even though the prefix in- means ‘not, opposite of, or without’.2 Though Merriam-Webster doesn’t condemn inflammable with the dreaded badge of ‘nonstandard’ that irregardless must wear.3
Early Examples
But when did people start using the word irregardless? Well, that’s hard to say. Most dictionaries will say ‘somewhere in the 1800s’ and ‘definitely in America’. Take this colorful example from a March 1886 New York Times article:
Every mother’s son of us, Sir, from me down to the humblest individooal in the village, irregardless of everything else, must jist turn to and experience infidelity, by thunder, and dedycate our selves anew to its service with all our mights, minds, strengths and gizzards, by thunder! 4
The writer is a man from Squallitj Kills, NY quoting a grocer-turned-street-preacher by the name of Rev Robert Slingemaround. Clearly, by the vernacular spelling and overblown imagery of his words, this is a meant to be tongue-in-cheek and perhaps a bit mocking of the working class. Of course those silly poor people wouldn’t know that irregardless isn’t a word!
But then consider this example from California in the same year. Note that the writer has a doctorate:
The winds would blow; the storms would come; the heat would vitalize; the cold would freeze; and the various seasons would pass, irregardless of what man could do or say, as warnings, of the weather on the morrow. 5
And just a few decades later, Ezra Pound, the influential (that is, pretentious) writer and creator of the Modernist movement used the word himself in his 1920 collection Instigations:
we cannot tell whether the mentality of the Victorian reign was an advance or an appalling retrogression. In any case we are glad to be out of it … irregardless of what we may be into; irregardless of whether the communications among intelligent people are but the mirage of a minute Thebaid seen from a chaos wholly insuperable. 6
Some might look to early uses of irregardless and claim that even then, the word was never really a word. But when PhDs and major literary figures are dropping it left and right, maybe that logic doesn’t hold up.
Grammarians Strike Back!
Regardless, writing manuals and style guides quickly begged writers to stop all this nonsense. As early as 1922, arbiters of English usage had this to say:
Disregardless, irregardless. Not legitimate words. The suffix -less conveys the negative idea; hense the prefixes dis- and ir- are superfluous. Say “Regardless of conditions,” not “Disregardless (or irregardless) of conditions.” 7
Uncharacteristically, HW Fowler had nothing to say about irregardless in either The King’s English (1906) or A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926). Perhaps because irregardless seems to be an American phenomenon. And yet, the word never made it into William Strunk, Jr’s original 1918 edition of The Elements of Style either. Not until 1999, does the 4th edition of Strunk and White’s The Element’s of Style include an entry on irregardless:
Irregardless. Should be regardless. The error results from failure to see the negative in -less and from a desire to get it in as a prefix, suggested by such words as irregular, irresponsible, and, perhaps especially, irrespective. 8
The Chicago Manual of Style, MLA Handbook and AP Stylebook all say, nah.
The ‘Irregardless’ Renaissance
Dictionary compilers traditionally take a much more laissez-faire approach to words and word usage. As Merriam-Webster explains:
“The reason we…define irregardless is very simple: it meets our criteria for inclusion. This word has been used by a large number of people (millions) for a long time (over two hundred years) with a specific and identifiable meaning (“regardless”).”
Lexicographers care about what words people use. And they don’t really concern themselves with whether or not a person ‘should’ use them. The fact is, people say irregardless. A Google ngram shows irregardless steadily increasing in usage over the decades since 1886 9. And since reaching internet meme status years ago, it doesn’t look like it will be falling out of fashion anytime soon.
But is irregardless more popular as a word-that-isn’t-a-word than it is in its own right? The fact is, I’ve rarely heard anyone use it unironically.
This New York Times article speculates it was a deliberate joke, similar to the currently accepted etymology of OK (which apparently stands for ‘oll korrect’)
- Moynihan, Tim | “Off topic: In defense of ‘irregardless’” | CNET | 12 Oct 2007
- ‘in-‘ | Online Etymology Dictionary
- ‘Irregardless‘ | Merriam-Webster
- “Conflict Impending” | The New York Times | 7 Mar 1886
- Trembley, Dr JB | “Reports and Statistics of the Meteorology of the City of Oakland, for the Year 1886” | Transactions of the California State Agricultural Society During the Year 1886 | 1886
- Pound, Ezra | “In the Vortex” | Instigations | 1920
- Smart PhD, Walter Kay | “Glossary of Faulty Diction” | Chapter VIII: “Diction” | Handbook of Effective Writing | 1922
- Strunk, Oliver | Chapter IV: “Words and Expressions Commonly Misused” | The Elements of Style (4th Edition) | 1999
- “irregardless” | Google Books Ngram Viewer