Do you use the word irregardless?
Or, an even better question: have you ever had an argument about whether it's a word or not?
That very debate has kicked off on social media (not for the first time) after a talk show anchor used it during an interview.
Lots of people felt compelled to share their outrage with the virtual world but the Merriam-Webster Dictionary wasn't having a bar of it, putting the debate to bed irregardless of what Twitter's grammar police do or say.
Why are we talking about this?
Host of MSNBC's Deadline White House, Nicolle Wallace, was interviewing New York Times reporter Katie Benner when she dared to utter the word "irregardless" during a question.
NW: ... I know from your view and your inside knowledge of DOJ that they are not oblivious to this but they do what they do irregardless of the political wins, but tell me what kind of toll the rhetoric of the riot is taking on this investigation and these professionals?
KB: I think that there's a lot of caution around safety, you mentioned the attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati ...
Cue social media outrage.
"'Irregardless' is NOT a word. Come on Nicolle," one viewer said.
"Please make it stop... #NotAWord," another added.
Dictionary says...
Yes. It says yes.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary was so sick of the debate it responded on social media ...
... and brought receipts, citing dozens of uses of the word irregardless in newspapers and journals dating back to the 1870s.
"We label this word 'nonstandard.' This does not mean that it isn't a word, or that it is a bad word," Merriam-Webster says.
"It does mean that you likely want to avoid using it in your writing at work or school."
Merriam-Webster ruled that irregardless and regardless have the same definition and that the only significant difference in the use of the two is that "no one much cares when you use 'regardless,' but people like to shriek and guffaw when you use 'irregardless'."
"You can ask why we define this word, whether there are other similar constructions in English, or if it's acceptable for you to use it," it said.
"Or you can simply shriek into the void about the cruelty of a world in which language does not follow the rules you think it should."
It's not the first time Merriam-Webster has clapped back at this debate (and dare we say it may not be the last).
The dictionary published a usage note in 2020 explaining to a "small and police group of people" why it defines the word irregardless.
Spoiler: It's because it's a word that meets the dictionary's criteria for inclusion. Simple as that.
At the time, it said:
"If we were to remove irregardless from our dictionary it would not cause the word to magically disappear from the language; we do not have that kind of power.
"Our inclusion of the word is not an indication of the English language falling to pieces, the educational system failing, the work of the cursed Millennials, or anything else aside from the fact that a lot of people use this word to mean "regardless," and so we define it that way."
The Macquarie Dictionary lists irregardless as an adverb blending the two words "regardless" and "irrespective", and while it is defined as a word, it's "not generally accepted as standard English".
The Collins Dictionary also recognises irregardless in British English but not as standard American English, as do the Macmillan and Cambridge dictionaries.
It is, however, included in one of America's most pivotal pop culture products, so make of that what you will:
