# Is "irregardless" a real word? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2007, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271 "2007-01-01T04:35:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/21 "2007-01-01T22:17:19Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] It’s a word, an it’s a synonym for “regardless.” [/QUOTE] Looks, and sounds, more like an antonym for ‘regardless’. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/22 "2007-01-01T22:33:29Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] True, but that wasn’t the question. [/quote] Why interpret the OP’s words so literally? This seems uncharitable. It was clear to me (and apparently to many others) what information the OP was after. Did you really not understand the intention? Why couldn’t you have answered the clearly intended question, as well as explaining the error that lies behind the particular statement of the question in the OP? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/23 "2007-01-01T22:42:20Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] Why couldn’t you have answered the clearly intended question, as well as explaining the error that lies behind the particular statement of the question in the OP? -FrL- [/QUOTE] They chose to answer the OP, irregardless. SHTSI ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/24 "2007-01-01T23:02:16Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] Why interpret the OP’s words so literally? This seems uncharitable. It was clear to me (and apparently to many others) what information the OP was after. Did you really not understand the intention? [/quote] I wasn’t replying to the OP; I was replying to **Captain Carrot** (note the quote in my reply: you can see the letters C-a-p-t-a-i-n C-a-r-r-o-t, which indicates he was the one who I was replying to). > [@jabiru](#): > > Looks, and sounds, more like an antonym for ‘regardless’. Perhaps, but everyone understands it to be a synonym. How people understand a word is more important that what it may look like to you. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/25 "2007-01-01T23:05:48Z")
[QUOTE=jabiru] Looks, and sounds, more like an antonym for ‘regardless’. [/QUOTE] As said above, so do “flammable” and “inflammable”, but they are indeed synonyms, and got that way from people using them as such, not because some dictionary editor decided what it should logically mean. Logically, they \*should \*be antonyms. Care to discuss “ghoti” next in our Lessons on the Use and Abuse of Logic in the English Language? ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/26 "2007-01-01T23:33:18Z")
‘Responsible’ and ‘irresponsible’ also mean the same thing, I suppose? ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/27 "2007-01-01T23:56:32Z")
Why do you suppose that? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/28 "2007-01-02T00:26:49Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] I wasn’t replying to the OP; I was replying to **Captain Carrot** (note the quote in my reply: you can see the letters C-a-p-t-a-i-n C-a-r-r-o-t, which indicates he was the one who I was replying to). [/quote] In post number 19, to which my post was a reply, you said “True, but that isn’t the question.” You are certainly correct that post number 19 was in response to **Carrot**.\* But the question to which you referred while replying to Captain Carrot was the question of the OP. I was asking why you interpreted that question so literally. ( **Carrot** gave the natural interpretation of the question, and you disagreed with his interpretation of it by saying “that wasn’t the question,” apparently relying, as I said, on an unnecessarily literal reading of the OP’s question.) If I am wrong about this, then which question were you referring to instead? -FrL- \*As per your guideline, I carefully read the quote portion of your post, noting carefully the spelling of the term designating the name of the person you were quoting. You were indeed correct. The letters involved were C, A, P, T, A, I, N, C, A, R, R, O, T, indicating **Captain Carrot** to be the relevant poster. Previously, I had simply assumed **Carrot** was the person you were responding to based on a reading of the flow of the thread. But now that I know this really nice trick of reading the name of the poster at the top of a quote box, I’m going to have a much easier time of it in the future. Thanks for that! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271/29 "2007-01-02T16:17:27Z")
Recently mocked (and rightly so!) on _The Family Guy_, FWIW. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-irregardless-a-real-word/386271.md?page=1)