Helen Besoe: Don't say 'irregardless' around me

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Don't say 'irregardless' around me

In general, just try to avoid bad grammar and redundancies (oxymorons are okay). I know my grammar isn't perfect, but I do make an effort and I appreciate when other folks do the same. This mostly applies to writing, of course. The spoken word is supposed to be much more free form than what we write down. That being said, there are a few words that just plain annoy me, irregardless of circumstance.

irregardless
It's completely redundant. Regardless already means "without regard to", there is absolutely no need to preface that with a negating "ir-". This word should not even exist! The only time you should be able to get away with using it is if it's part of some sort of humour.

prebiotic
This one really drives me nuts! I mean "probiotic" was bad enough. Someone decided to coin the term and then everyone latched onto it. Now every second thing you see in the supermarket is "probiotic this" and "probiotic that". The problem with probiotics becoming so popular though is that now your calcium-enriched-trans-fat-free-low-sugar-probiotic yogurt no longer stands out. You need a new hook. So, what do they come up with? "Prebiotic"! This word is such a gimmick! They've started tossing it into ads and slipping it into commercials. Not that they explain what the term means mind you. "Probiotic" is already popular enough, people are gonna jump on the bandwagon without even knowing or caring what the word means. This word is yet more proof that human beings seem to have lost the ability to think for themselves. Empty-headed sheep!

orientated
I've always said oriented. I'm not sure which version is technically correct, but "orientated" always makes me do a little inward cringe when I hear it.

dreamed
I know it's considered a perfectly acceptable alternative to "dreamt". Actually, it looks like it may have overtaken its older counterpart; this spell checker doesn't even recognize "dreamt" as a word. Anyway, I still prefer the older form. "Dreamed" was only introduced in order to get this verb to match up with all the other ones that take an "-ed" to form the past tense. Just like "swollen" and "swelled". In this case, it's not so much that "dreamed" annoys me as that I prefer the alternative.

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