Despite the fact that my writing class is at 8:30am Monday mornings, it is actually one of my favorite classes this semester. We are studying an interesting book called On Writing Well by William Zinsser, who encourages concise and precise language. He wants us to cut the fancy jargon and cliches, and get to the point! It seems that people try to weave eloquent complex sentences, but just end up losing their audience in a sea of muddled language.
I find the Oxford dictionary very helpful when it comes to choosing the right words. Conveniently, it comes pre-loaded on macs, and I have it on my dashboard because I use it all the time! For example, the dictionary explains the difference between the precise meanings of words that are similar, but not quite the same, like scold, chide, berate, upbraid, revile and vituperate.
However, I was very offended to find the word "irregardless" in the Oxford dictionary!!! I LOATHE that word, and people say it all the time. I've heard it at least twice from professors on campus this semester (it may have been the same guy twice, I don't remember).
Here's the entry:
irregardless |ˌiriˈgärdlis| adjective & adverb informal regardless.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: probably a blend of irrespective and regardless .
USAGE Irregardless, with its illogical negative prefix, is widely heard, perhaps arising under the influence of such perfectly correct forms as : irrespective. Irregardless is avoided by careful users of English. Use regardless to mean 'without regard or consideration for' or 'nevertheless': : I go walking every day regardless of season or weather.
So, even though definition does say it's an illogical compilation, what I really want is for them to say it's WRONG. Perhaps you think ranting and raving about the English language is a bit out of my field of expertise. I certainly wouldn't try to match wits with my English-major roommate from undergrad, but I do think our language deserve a little less abuse. Comedian Ed Byrne would surely agree.
In this video my classmates showed today, he explains how Alanis Morissette clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the word "ironic." It is hilarious! (it's a little long and he doesn't start that joke until about 1:43 on the counter).
People really love to hate on 'irregardless', and to be fair, it's a pretty silly word. Most style manuals will instruct against it, though most dictionaries these days are descriptive rather than prescriptive (i.e. they describe how language is used, standard and non-standard, rather than how language /ought/ to be used). Language Log and others have some scathing things to say about prescriptivism, for what it's worth:
ReplyDeletehttp://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=410
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=748
And this gentleman makes the case for 'irregardless' specifically:
http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/220
As a former self-described grammar nazi, I used to hate all non-standard words and un-Strunkian usage. But then I saw the light. Life's too short to get bothered by folks ending sentences in prepositions or using "that" when Strunk & White think they should have used "which". The goal here is clear communication, not tormenting sentences to fit into a narrow set of (often conflicting) complex rules.
Love,
Your cousin Stephen
I certainly wouldn't try to match wits with my English-major roommate from undergrad
ReplyDeleteHeh. ;)
Solidifying my true English major nerd-dom, my reaction to hearing that you have the Oxford English Dictionary PRE-LOADED onto your Mac was basically, "OMG! I am SO jealous! Dictionary.com takes FOREVER to load sometimes!" ...Yeah...
#1 that ironic video was hilarious. #2 we have oxford english dictionary? where might i find this?
ReplyDeletekatie
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ReplyDeletetouché, dear cousin. perhaps i should loosen up because like you said the main point is communication. i guess after all if language were not so organic, we'd still be speaking like shakespeare...how is life treating you these days??
ReplyDeleteaw, jess, there's still a special place in my heart for dictionary.com, but i love the convenience of not having to be online to look up stuff.
katie, try searching under Applications on your mac. It should just be called "Dictionary." You can pull up the application, or if you go to your dashboard and click the little plus sign, you can add it there. i find it to be more useful that way.
awesome! it is permanently docked. there is still so much to learn about this thing
ReplyDelete