Jacob Eason

public school, eh?

"Irregardless" is a dumber way of saying "regarding".

if her desk was flammable or inflammable.

Sure "without without" is how the morphemes work (that's their mechanism), but frequency of use trumps morphemes when setting word meanings. Irregardless is used frequently enough in the place of "regardless" to mean "regardless." It's far from the only such example of frequency trumping strict morpheme interpretation. "Flammable" versus "inflammable" is an equivalent and classic example. Meanwhile, I will say that marrying a Hispanic Linguist (basically a research scientist of Spanish word use) has really changed my perspective about unpopular English usages. I used to do the pearl clutching thing whenever someone "misused" "literally" when intending to say "figuratively." But every language follows a pattern of ceaseless change. And that change is not driven by dictionaries. It's driven by popularity. Whatever is said sufficiently frequently *becomes* the next language convention. In this sense, it is incorrect to turn to dictionaries to "prove someone wrong" about their language use. Dictionaries don't shape the language and its frequency. The language's frequency shapes dictionaries. To that extent, the best online dictionary is merely a slightly out-of-date snap shot of the English language right now -- largely devoid of what's coming next. And if enough people start deviating from the dictionary, they aren't "wrong" but are creators of the new "correct." Therefore, snootily pearl clutching because our precious word conventions are changing is wrong-headed and wholly ignorant of how language works.

I've seen Merriam Webster at parties and she was definitely consuming the cocaine.