#irregardless

A fascinating statement! 

What is a word? Let’s discuss.

(Please rest assured - I’m not here to mock you or argue with you. I’m a linguist through and through, and I find that it’s endlessly entertaining to consider various linguistic fallacies.)

A word is a sound, or a collection of sounds, given meaning through mutual societal agreement between one or two people (though usually it is a community that shares the language). 

Relatively speaking, this particular textpost gives a rather succinct historical overview:

To summarize - people see Thing, people give Name to Thing. People Disagree on Name and work it out amongst themselves until some community consensus is reached.

Now, you have to understand one thing - Language is... organic. It’s not a machine that we build. It’s a thing that grows. When we (linguists) talk about grammar, we are not writing a manual on ‘proper use’ - we are describing a naturally occurring phenomenon that has happened - has BEEN happening - all over the globe for, oh, at least 60,000 years. Descriptors such as ‘incorrect’ are rare, and most of the time, we’re just concerned with making a RECORD of the latest version of whatever is happening on the Language Nature Chanel before it inevitably changes once again. 

When scientists are out observing their subject of study, it’s not “Oh, look, the Lion is chewing on the bark of a tree, which is the WRONG use of Lion Teeth, which are only for chewing on ANTELOPE LEGS.” That would be silly, right? It’s more like “Oh, look, that lion is chewing on the tree. Why is it doing that? That’s unusual. What might be the purpose of such a behavior? Is it standard? Is it widespread? We must make note of it!”

Human grammar is something that changes, shifts, evolves. Human vocabulary follows the same patterns. It’s not a steadfast thing governed by rules or rulers, who sit on some imaginary Proper English Throne somewhere out of sight and pen Grammar Laws. 

And similarly, words are not always going to be the same. Which I think is rather obvious - I mean, look at how language has been changing for the past few centuries!! 

Now, you said specifically: ‘irregardless’ is NOT a word. 

What you meant was - it’s a non-standard use of the word, and morphologically it’s redundant because ‘regardless’ already means the same thing, and people adding the prefix ‘ir’ onto it creates a double stack of the same meaning which is already accomplished by the original morpheme ‘less’ to mean ‘without regard’.

But what you REALLY meant was: “You’re being ungrammatical and I feel like you’re breaking some sort of rule so I have to send you a message to correct you.”

Which - cool! Thanks. 

But linguistically speaking, ‘irregardless’, despite its redundancy and how much it’s hated by the Grammatical Rules (Do Not Break: Fragile!) Community.... IS a word. 

Because you KNOW what it means. You KNOW what I meant by it. Like it or not, that word has already entered public knowledge and it HAS been used since the 18th century by various people! It’s a non-standard use, true, but it IS a set of sounds, and it DOES have an agreed upon meaning. The word itself carries across a concept, and you UNDERSTOOD that concept, you KNEW what I meant, and therefore - the word ‘exists’ in the public sphere of community knowledge. 

And frustrating as it is, this is actually how MOST words come about. MANY words which we today consider ‘grammatical’ and ‘proper’ have evolved from earlier versions of language which considered their use ‘incorrect’ or ‘bastardized’ or ‘uncouth’. That’s just... what language does. If something becomes common through usage, it will sound familiar to our ears, enter our vocabulary and before you know it..... YEET! 

Anyway, grammar is fake and nothing matters. I’m not here to write an essay for my stuffy English Professor. If you understand me, we’ve achieved communication and that’s good enough.