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Re:I Owe It All to Community College by vacri on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @07:54PM (#8890257)
'colo[u]r' is merely a spelling difference. 'irregardless' is a double-negative to some people, and not to others. It's an ambiguous word.
Re:I Owe It All to Community College by cbd1984 on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @11:56PM (#8890954)
"Irregardless" isn't ambiguous, either. Everyone knows what it means. The debate is over whether it should be in the language, in a moral sense, which is different.
Re:I Owe It All to Community College by vacri on Thursday January 15, 2015 @04:10AM (#8891574)
No, everyone doesn't 'know what it means', not without additional mental parsing. Myself, among many others, read it first as a double-negative, then have to double-take it and reinterpret it. Irrespective, irreducable, irrecoverable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, irreligious, irrefutable - irregardless stands out like a sore thumb.

Or should I say 'irreinterpret it'? After all, you would 'know what I meant' if I wrote that.

Ambiguity is fine if you're writing for poetic effect, but if you're trying to get a point across, it should be minimised.

Re:I Owe It All to Community College by DanBC on Thursday January 15, 2015 @06:22AM (#8891927)
Wait, are you really sYing that when you see "irregardless" that your first response is not "that's an error and they mean regardless[1]" but "they mean regardless but negated so regard but that doesn't make sense so they actually mean regardless"?

[1] why not irregard instead of regardless?

Re:I Owe It All to Community College by vacri on Thursday January 15, 2015 @01:36PM (#8894406)
"that's an error and they mean regardless" = "additional mental parsing"
Re:I Owe It All to Community College by bane on Thursday January 15, 2015 @10:06AM (#8892789)
Yet astonishingly you are one of the people who knew what it meant.

Also, most English dialects don't strictly follow double-negation rules. I know this drives non-native speakers crazy, but you'll get over it with enough practice.

Re:I Owe It All to Community College by vacri on Thursday January 15, 2015 @01:41PM (#8894445)
I think you missed my point - perhaps you should irreinterpret my comment.
Re:I Owe It All to Community College by thizzbuzz on Thursday January 15, 2015 @06:19AM (#8891916)
It stands out because "regardless" and "irregardless" are adverbs, while the others you listed are all adjectives.

And it does fit the pattern of negating the root morpheme.

Re:I Owe It All to Community College by rofl1234 on Thursday January 15, 2015 @10:46AM (#8893089)
Everybody knows that it means not (not in regard).