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tchernabyelo
Acolyte
      
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 474
| Posted 11/13/2007 6:28 AM (GMT -5) |   | I stand corrected. It is a word in America (I haven't checked to see if it's in a UK dictionary; I've certainly found no citations of it).
It is, however (as its Wikipedia entry makes clear), a complete bollocks word, because it is used to mean either "irrespective" or "regardless", and its actual contruction makes it a double negative, thus its technical meaning is the exact opposite of the way people use it.
I have the same objection to the way "literally" has come to be used as an emphatic, in precise opposition to its proper meaning - "He literally exploded into action". No, he figuratively exploded into action.
Language changes over time. However moronic changes perpetrated by people who don't understand what they're saying should be opposed, not blithely accepted.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"When Winter Came" - ASIM#32 (forthcoming) | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 11/13/2007 3:39 PM (GMT -5) | | Vizzini: INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Of course Rick Springfield is probablly the worse offender in this category with "Jessie's Girl" because he popularized the use of the word "moot" in its most common usage--which is rather the reverse of the word's true definition.
However in a sense of communication it's probablly better to be understood than to be technically correct.
I think technical correctness is often attributed to characteristics anal, stuffy, fussy, etc. How much fun is that?
But my saying that is probably a moot point. 
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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crystalwizard
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 5194
| Posted 11/14/2007 7:04 PM (GMT -5) | | tchernabyelo said...
And Daniel - ain't no such word as "irregardless". Never has and never will be. Regardless, yes; irrespective, yes. Irregardless, no.
Caution. Absolutes will absolutely rise up and bite you ;)
4 results for: Irregardless
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Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) -
ir·re·gard·less /ˌɪrɪˈgɑrdlɪs/ Pronunciation Key –adverb Nonstandard.
regardless.
[Origin: 1910–15; ir-2 (prob. after irrespective) + regardless]
—Usage note Irregardless is considered nonstandard because of the two negative elements ir- and -less. It was probably formed on the analogy of such words as irrespective, irrelevant, and irreparable. Those who use it, including on occasion educated speakers, may do so from a desire to add emphasis. Irregardless first appeared in the early 20th century and was perhaps popularized by its use in a comic radio program of the 1930s.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
ir·re·gard·less (ĭr'ĭ-gärd'lĭs) Pronunciation Key
adv. Nonstandard
Regardless.
[Probably blend of irrespective and regardless.]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
=========================
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
irregardless
an erroneous word that, etymologically, means the exact opposite of what it is used to express, attested in non-standard writing from 1912, probably a blend of irrespective and regardless. Perhaps inspired by the double negative used as an emphatic.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
irregardless
adverb
regardless; a combination of irrespective and regardless sometimes used humorously
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University. | | Back to Top | | |
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Charles Gramlich
Acolyte
Date Joined Aug 2007
Total Posts : 270
| Posted 11/14/2007 10:26 PM (GMT -5) | | When I first started writing as a teenager, for my own enjoyment, I often used names borrowed from Howard and ERB. But I know that as an adult, writing pastiches must typically be approved by whoever owns the copyright. You can't write and publish for gain your personal story about Conan or John Carter or Solomon Kane without permission from the owners of those properites, Paradox in Conan and Solomon Kane's case, and the Burroughs family (I think) in ERB's case. Some folks do these kinds of pastiches, but they essentially do it not for profit, meaning they aren't selling it and trying to make money. No regular publisher would touch such a book anyway because they would be sued in a heartbeat.
On the other hand, there are plenty of sword and sorcery and sword and planet stories to be told that may honor the founders like Howard and ERB, but which do not use copyrighted characters. I recently had a Sword and Planet trilogy published by Borgo Press, (distributed by Wildside) featuring a hero named Ruenn MacLang and a planet named Talera. It's clearly in the same genre as ERB's Barsoom tales, but Ruenn is certainly not John Carter, and Talera is much, much different from Barsoom. There are sword fights galore, but nothing is directly borrowed from ERB's work.
Charles Gramlich
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von Darkmoor
Small Press Publisher (and Dancer still)
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 3120
| Posted 11/15/2007 12:02 PM (GMT -5) | | I'm not even going to join the fray, just wanted to say this was a hilarious post, Nathan! 
nathan said...Vizzini: INCONCEIVABLE. Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Of course Rick Springfield is probablly the worse offender in this category with "Jessie's Girl" because he popularized the use of the word "moot" in its most common usage--which is rather the reverse of the word's true definition.
However in a sense of communication it's probablly better to be understood than to be technically correct.
I think technical correctness is often attributed to characteristics anal, stuffy, fussy, etc. How much fun is that?
But my saying that is probably a moot point.
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tchernabyelo
Acolyte
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 474
| Posted 11/15/2007 1:51 PM (GMT -5) | |
Daniel said...However moronic changes perpetrated by people who don't understand what they're saying should be opposed, not blithely accepted. *** That's right -- let's take to the streets!!!! Down with the grammatically challenged!! Burn the heathens! What should be hanging offense is policing other folks' grammar. In an informal setting, I mean. This drives me nuts. What if I was a hairstylist and spent all my time pointing out the flaws in people's hair? Let's see: your part is crooked and your hair is a little dry.... Correct grammar is important, but it doesn't have much to do with casual conversation. People who compulsively prompt others on grammar are friggin' annoying.
Compulsive people are generally annoying.
I however, did something once, pointed out that it was just a particular pet peeve, and have accepted that I was wrong. You may be sure I won't be doing it again.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"When Winter Came" - ASIM#32 (forthcoming) | | Back to Top | | |
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Keralen
Adept
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 580
| Posted 11/16/2007 8:47 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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von Darkmoor
Small Press Publisher (and Dancer still)
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 3120
| Posted 11/16/2007 3:53 PM (GMT -5) | | |
I guess I will step in for a bit . . . no, nothing major, just decided to say that, mostly I agree here. I totally agree that in an informal setting, in casual communication, there is no necessity to observe formal restrictions and it is annoying to have it done . . . by anyone to anyone. However - and this is were I disagree - I don't believe this can be 'enforced' across the board. In order to alleviate confusion, there are times when clarity through correction must be sought. As long as that is the point and as long as the pursuit of correction is dropped once clarity has been reached, I have no problem with it.
In this case, since the word under discussion could cause confusion by employing a double negative, I have no problem with questioning it. I wouldn't have, simply becaue I can read it in context and exactly for the reasons listed above - but I wouldn't need to do so either. I can totally understand there are people who would need the clarity. So, while interesting in a 'gaping-driver-at-an-accident-scene-slowing-down-everyone-else' way, the rest of this thread has simply been much ado about nothing.  (Nice figuration, though, Daniel )
Daniel said...
That's right -- let's take to the streets!!!! Down with the grammatically challenged!! Burn the heathens!
What should be hanging offense is policing other folks' grammar. In an informal setting, I mean. This drives me nuts. What if I was a hairstylist and spent all my time pointing out the flaws in people's hair?
Let's see: your part is crooked and your hair is a little dry....
Correct grammar is important, but it doesn't have much to do with casual conversation. People who compulsively prompt others on grammar are friggin' annoying.
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Nicholas
Sage
Date Joined Jun 2006
Total Posts : 1067
| Posted 11/20/2007 12:55 PM (GMT -5) | | The Professor weighs in on GRAMMAR POLICE and COPYRIGHT...
“written during an author’s lifetime”
> >
slight correction: *published* during an author’s lifetime. This is another odd wrinkle to the discussion: if a new manuscript is discovered by a long-dead author and published, it has a brand new copyright law stemming from the date of its publication, completely unrelated to how long the author has been moldering in the ground. Here’s an example, off the top of my head: Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is, if I’m not mistaken (and when it comes to the minutiae of copyright law, I very well could be), now in public domain. Anyone can publish that poem. However, a few years back a new, “uncut” version of the poem was published, and it is protected by its own shiny new copyright law. Technically, this unedited version is older (and substantially longer) than the one we’re all familiar with from college English. However, since it had never been published before, it has a copyright beginning from the date of its recent publication.
> >
I was always taught by English sticklers that “irregardless” is incorrect as well; however, in casual discourse I will defiantly say “ain’t,” and remind all that English is a fluid, living language. In the end, what determines the acceptability of a word is its “penetration,” i.e. how many of the English-speaking population use and/or recognize it.
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crystalwizard
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 5194
| Posted 11/21/2007 6:28 PM (GMT -5) | | >emind all that English is a fluid, living language
Bling-Bling is part of Websters... now.
so is ain't. And incidently, aint is NOT a new word:
Online Etymology Dictionary -
ain''t
1706, originally a contraction of am not, and in proper use with that sense until it began to be used as a generic contraction for are not, is not, etc., in early 19c. Cockney dialect of London, popularized by representations of this in Dickens, etc., which led to the word being banished from correct English.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 11/25/2007 4:26 PM (GMT -5) | | So if Dickens had been less popular, ain't would have suvived as what it was, am not, but would continue to plague editors and school teachers when it was used for it wasn't. I myself ain't in the buisness of making school teacher's or editor's jobs less fractious, I'm in the buisness of telling stories. As such I'll continue to uses what words work to most effceintly convey my stories, as I'm sure most of you will.
Good writing and good writers use the right words for what they are trying to say, and a writer usually wants his words to do more than one thing. Words can lend veracity to a setting while describing a situation or conveying dialog, or what have you. Tone and pace can be regulated by using longer or shorter words, and longer or shorer sentences. It is perfctly fine to have someone say "Irregardless" because people do say "irregardless", though are careful writer should avoid using it in the narrative of his tale. Except, of course, where it is the right word.
Remember, like the pirate's code grammer is often "more guidelines than actual rules".
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 12/5/2007 9:47 PM (GMT -5) | | [edit] Note concerning Conan and Hyboria
In the United Kingdom and many other countries, the stories, elements and characters created by an author enter the public domain 70 years after their death. The creator of Conan and Hyboria, Robert E. Howard, died in 1936. His original stories, ideas, characters, and elements, including those featuring Conan the Barbarian and Hyboria, become part of the U.K. public domain as of January 1, 2007. No publisher may claim rights to his material. His stories and the characters portrayed within them, including Conan the Barbarian, are public property, free for any and all to use as they wish.
****
Now that appeared in the wiki as I was perusing Hyborian Age for my own amusement. I'm writing my Conan goes to Mars story (crap been done!) nevermind. Need to find a paying publisher in the UK.
It's wiki--not a law firm so maybe there wrong. But it very Anarchy in the UK (thank you, thank you punk music lovers)
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with | |
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