“Irregardless” and the Words People Insist Are Not Words

Say irregardless in a room of careful writers and someone will tell you it is not a word.

It is in Merriam-Webster. It is in the Oxford English Dictionary. It has been in print since 1795. And the people objecting are not exactly wrong either, which is what makes this worth examining.

What a dictionary entry means

Modern dictionaries are descriptive. They record what people say and write, with notes on how a word is received. They are not licensing bodies, and inclusion is not endorsement.

Merriam-Webster’s entry for irregardless is instructive. It records the word, then adds that it is nonstandard and that regardless is the usual choice. Both halves are the entry. Quoting only the first is how the argument usually gets misreported.

So “it’s in the dictionary” and “educated readers will hold it against you” are both true, and neither cancels the other.

What is actually wrong with it

The complaint is structural. Regardless already carries a negative in -less. Adding ir- at the front puts a second negative on the same word, so the parts contradict each other.

It probably arose as a blend of irrespective and regardless — two words meaning much the same thing, colliding. Blends are a normal way English grows; brunch, smog and motel all arrived the same way. This one simply never earned respectability.

The list this argument recurs over

• Alright. Recorded for over a century, still widely treated as an error. All right is the safe choice.
• Ain’t. A regular contraction that got socially stranded. Fine in dialogue and song, marked in formal prose.
• Impactful. Formed normally from impact, and widely disliked in business writing. Effective or significant avoids the fight.
• Conversate. A back-formation from conversation, exactly like donate from donation — which was itself condemned when it was new.
• Funner. Perfectly regular; blocked only because fun is a recent adjective.

Notice the pattern. Every one is formed by a normal English process. What separates the accepted from the condemned is not logic but timing and social accident: donate survived the same objection and is now unremarkable.

The practical position

Two things are true at once, and holding both is the useful position:

• The words exist. “That’s not a word” is almost never accurate, and saying it to someone is usually about class and education rather than language.
• Using them costs you. A portion of your readers will mark you down. In a cover letter or a report, that cost is real and easily avoided.

So: write regardless. Not because irregardless is illegitimate, but because regardless is shorter, means the same thing, and starts no arguments.

The reason this matters beyond one word

Because the same reasoning applies to every disputed usage you will meet, and it produces better decisions than picking a side.

Ask two questions rather than one. Is this legitimate English? is a question about the language. Will it cost me with this reader? is a question about the situation. They have different answers surprisingly often, and only the second one changes what you should actually write.

Checked against Merriam-Webster, the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Spotted an error? Tell us — see our editorial policy.