Re: [css-fonts] "Irregardless"? REALLY?

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Brad Kemper <brad.kemper@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 2, 2009, at 8:01 AM, Eric A. Meyer wrote:
>
>>   So just last night, I was reading up on 'font-size'adjust' (3.7) and stumbled into the following bit of prose:
>>
>>   "It does this by adjusting the font-size so that the x-height
>>    is the same irregardless of the font used."
>>
>>   Horrified, I searched the document and discovered it AGAIN in the description of 'unicode-range' (4.5):
>>
>>   "Code points outside of the defined unicode-range are ignored,
>>    irregardless of whether the font contains a glyph for that
>>    code point or not."
>>
>> I believe both instances should be changed to "regardless", because that's an actual word.  "irrespective" would also be an acceptable substitute, though in my opinion just barely.  See <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/irregardless> for more information, if that's really necessary.
>>   Also, never tell me who did this, because if I find out I'll be honor-bound to follow through on my public statement and slap them like a haddock.  (Yes, "like", not "with".)
>>
>> --
>
> Enough people use "irrespective" to make it an actual word. It is hardly the first instance of a word in English that seems to mean the opposite of what it should, or of what it originally meant.
>
> Dictionaries can be both proscriptive and descriptive. Misuse of words turns out to be one of the biggest ways that languages change and evolve[1], and it always involves traditionalists bemoaning the disintegration of their language. But basically, if enough people misuse a word in the same way, the word takes on that new meaning, and dictionaries eventually have to adapt by describing the new meaning.
>
> [1] <http://www.unfoldingoflanguage.com/>

I still think "regardless" is a better word choice there.  Let's not
promote silly opposites-mean-the-same-thing word pairs like
flammable/inflammable.

~TJ

Received on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 16:48:28 UTC