Originally Posted by
Amadis of Gaul
Irregardless is not a word. Just an FYI.
Irregardless has been in use as a slang conflation of irrespective and regardless for some time now. The first printed record I can find is from Indiana in 1795. So I think it must be accepted that it is a word, in common use by North Americans to mean the same as its root words. Niminy piminy pedants find it offensive as they maintain that the negative initial consonant "irr" adds a further negative to "regardless" thus making a double negative, and so positive meaning. I feel that this is a purely academic objection, and prefer to go with Humpty Dumpty's argument in "Alice Through the Looking Glass". In any case, taking a pragmatic view, I believe that the word is sufficiently current now that its use is unremarkable, and certainly less likely to give rise to confusion than the widely accepted use of strings of initials and acronyms which infest this forum. FYI