The Birth of a Secret Society
They’ve got secret societies for everything nowadays. There’s the world elite that makes sure we have just enough choices to make us feel that we’re free while increasing their wealth by exploiting our blood and our backs. There’s also the old ladies that run around wearing red hats. I can’t figure out what the fuck they’re up to but I’m sure it’s more than antiquing and eating too much.
There’s a secret society that plans to take over the world by introducing a new global currency. There is a group of crazy dudes protecting a secret Jesus spittoon. We’ve got the religious sex cults and the cults of religious eunuchs. Up with the Jews and down with the Jews. Then there’s the secret society who endeavors to rid the world of gay folks. Of course, they’re contrasted by the secret society of queer dudes that talk members of the republican party into gay sex just for laughs and hilarious video footage. I’ve even heard of a powerful secret society that often dons a mighty fez and pilots tiny cars aimlessly around suburban thoroughfares.
Considering all the resources and organizing power that’s available in this world, can anyone explain to me how people are able to make daily use of the word “irregardless” without painful, painful consequences? Not since the female orgasm has something that technically doesn’t exist given me so much trouble. Let’s break it down:
- The prefix (ir) means ‘not’. So, for example, irregardless means ‘not regardless’.
- re·gard \ri-?gärd\ attention, consideration
regard should be given to all facets of the question> - Whenever you form the adjective by adding the suffix -less…you are describing something as not having or not affected by the thing mentioned.
- In summary, when your ridiculous doucheclod of a boss walks into your Monday morning staff meeting and says, “Times are tough. It looks like we’re going to see some layoffs irregardless of performance.” He actually means, “Times are tough. It looks like we’re going to see some layoffs regardless of performance.” You know…if he weren’t an ignorant, illiterate fucktard.
- The literal meaning of what he actually said appears to be, “Times are tough. It looks like we’re going to see some layoffs not with attention to unaffected by performance.” You might want to double check the accuracy of that last statement with Kristin, ’cause she would definitely know…Lord help us all…
My only point here is that there is no such friggin’ word, it annoys the piss out of me and there’s no polite way to get people to stop using it. At one point I imagined hiring a group of ninjas that would flash into a meeting, abduct the person using the distasteful pseudo-word and then educate them within an inch of their fucking lives. Unfortunately (according to the Barenaked Ladies) ninjas speak Japanese and wouldn’t know ‘irregardless’ from ‘irrigation’.
My next idea was the formation of a secret society called ‘Stop Helping Irregardless To Exist (S.H.I.T.E)’. There will be no leadership, no fund drives, no beer and ping pong (unless you want to…’cause if you do, I got beer). The whole club will consist of nothing but a simple signal between SHITE members to celebrate our unity in the fight against ‘irregardless’. When you’re sitting in a meeting or out in the world somewhere and some dickhead makes use of the phrase – just quickly reach up with your left hand and touch your left ear. Look around the room as you’re doing it and try not to laugh. Eventually people will want to know what you’re laughing at. Send them to this page. Someday I will be the ear-touching Tyler Durden in the fight club against irregardless. Thanks for your time and attention.
There is no such word as irregardless!!!
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Without suggesting that you’re an “ignorant, illiterate fucktard”, irregardless is perfectly OK. We use it to weed out the dumb fuckwits; also see inflammable.
At a 4th July parade I saw a semi-secret sect with what looked like plumes of desecrated coconut on across their hats. WTF is up with that? The sides of the hats had crucifixes on them. Was Jesus a macaroon fan?
What about that secret society that I am a member of? You know, the one with men who wear kilts and no you may not see a picture of me wearing one. Wait, no female orgasms? I’ve been dupped and all this time, I thought ol’ John Holmes was doing his job…
“Times are tough. It looks like we’re going to see some layoffs not with attention to unaffected by performance.”
yeah…that sounds about right.
and who doesn’t love macaroons?
Maybe the secret society could have lunch here:http://www.irregardless.com/
And leave a small suitcase nuke behind as it looks a little on the douchey side!
I don’t care if it IS in the dictionary, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
From Houghton Mifflin:
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
So @Limey, I consider that you have blundered. In a blizzard. Blimey!
Homer Muffin who? As Jed down the street would say, I could care less. English usage from Bostonians?
Sorry Limey, inflammable is a word. I do agree that it is confusing though, and needs to go.
from Merriam-Webster (excessive quotation marks are theirs):
“Combustible” and “incombustible” are opposites, but “flammable” and “inflammable” are synonyms. Why? The “in-” of “incombustible” is a common prefix meaning “not,” whereas the “in-” of “inflammable” means “in” or “into.” Dating back to 1605, “inflammable” descends from the Latin inflammare (“to inflame”), combining the in- prefix with flammare (“to flame”). “Flammable” also comes from flammare, but didn’t enter English until 1813. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think “inflammable” meant “not able to catch fire,” so they adopted “flammable” and “nonflammable” as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion. In general use, “flammable” is now the preferred termed for describing things that can catch fire, but “inflammable” is still occasionally used as well.
Being that the word supposedly emerged from the midwest(Indiana) gives suspect to me. Nothing good can come from that irregardless of what it means.
Kristin, you misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I know inflammable is valid, I was saying it’s like irregardless, in that people often falsely think it’s a mistake. Same as burned/burnt, which probably makes the Houghton Mifflin people throw their beans at the wall.
A man once wrote in to Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla at “The Man Show” and asked how he might be able to tell fake breasts from real breasts. Their response was something like, “If you can see them, they’re real. Don’t worry about it.”
Using this line of reasoning can help to justify ‘irregardless’ as a word. An illogical double-negative of a word, but a word nonetheless. Use it all you want…I’m just gonna jam the fingers of my left hand into my left ear and call you an asshole behind your back.
Limey – you’re right. I read what you wrote all wrong. Oops.
You can also counteract it with “disirregardless”. They never get it, though.