Got into a discussion about the word irregardless, and I realized that I haven’t heard or read it in forever except as a go-to example for nonstandard speech. Ain’t is more commonly used for that example, but ain’t wouldn’t count because it’s still widely used in everyday speech.
I’m sure that some people use irregardless, but it’s been years and years since I’ve encountered them.
I tried to think of other examples, but I’m coming up blank. Y’all got any? Doesn’t have to be words, anything will do.
There’s usually plenty of these in any list of ‘famous facts that aren’t true’. Like Napoleon being short, or King Alfred burning the cakes. It’s far more common these days to hear of them in such lists than as actual facts.
Some people were adamant about the use of inflammable, regarding “flammable’” as an idiotic patronizing form for those who were unfamiliar with the proper use of language. William Strunk was one of these, since it’s in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and presumably White, since he kept it in the book.
Me, I much prefer inartful clarity over impeccably correct ambiguity. I don’t want to catch fire because someone confused the terms.
My girlfriend’s first car was a Yugo. The interior door handles broke off, so she had to roll the window down and open the door from the outside. Which was a trick because spinny things on the interior window cranks also broke off, so she had to use the open-palm method of rolling the window down. She repurposed a flyswatter to hold her muffler on after it fell off, and she had no local radio after the antenna flew off during a drive.
Man, she loved that car. Partly because it was her first car, her first real freedom. But mostly because cops never looked twice at her, apparently under the impression that a Yugo could never go that fast.
The Edsel. Fifty years later and it is still shorthand for Business Failure. Even the Yugo hasn’t displaced it. (Yes, I know that there are people who collect them.)