In July 2020, Merriam Webster included “irregardless” in the dictionary and officially gave it the status of a real word (the word was first included in MW in 1934; long time to hold a grudge, I agree). If you spend your days fighting with your friends over the misuse of “literally,” you understand the gravity of this situation.
Merriam Webster recognizes the fury too (mostly because of the angry tweets and letters they received):
We define irregardless, even though this act hurts the feelings of many. Why would a dictionary do such a thing? Do we enjoy causing pain? Have we abdicated our role as arbiter of all that is good and pure in the English language?
“English is literally dead,” replied the Internet in chorus. But Merriam Webster did not back down. It called the word “nonstandard” and insisted that given the fact that irregardless has been used in speech and print for over 200 years with a consistent meaning throughout, it is by definition an actual word.
What does it mean? The same thing “regardless” means. Why? Because that’s how it has been used since it first appeared on the block in 1795. Where did it come from? Probably a blend of irrespective and regardless.
A nonstandard word is defined as one that’s “not conforming in pronunciation, grammatical construction, idiom, or word choice to the usage generally characteristic of educated native speakers of a language.”
The detractors—and there are many—disagree. They argue that it’s a nonsensical word which technically means “without without regard,” and must have no place in the hallowed halls of English - the logical language whose consistent (yes, sarcasm) rules give us ambiguous gems like (try to figure out what these 100% correct sentences mean):
The horse raced past the barn fell down (hint: the barn didn’t fall down; another hint: it’s in passive voice), or
I’m glad I’m a man, and so is Lola (I’m glad I don’t have to learn this language at my age, man)
Tumblr concurs:
But Merriam Webster had had enough of the whining and flippantly replied:
It’s not always polite in the world of word-worshippers.
Also, irregardless is only one in a long line of offenders. Other words with unnecessary prefixes or suffixes include overwhelmed (since to be whelmed is already to be completely inundated, overcome, or submerged), reiterate (when any computer science student will tell you that iterate means repeat so reiterate must mean re-repeat), and misunderestimated (a double-negative once used by President G.W. Bush in a public speech, and which just means estimated).
Besides strange words, there’s also the problem of confusing spellings and pronunciation—so confusing that for ages, there has been a movement to reform English orthography and simplify the language. For instance, the American Philological Society wanted to push for phonetic accuracy and adopted new spellings like are→ar, have→hav, through→thru, live→liv, though→tho, and guard→gard. This is similar to the text spellings used by the acquaintances you judge. Could texters be the revolutionaries who finally achieve what George Bernard Shaw could not? G.B. Shaw was so committed to the cause, his will actually specified potential changes and necessary conditions needed to imagine the ideal alphabet, making him a poster boy for spelling reform.
A popular, but hard to prove, story goes like this:
The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is said to have joked that the word ‘fish’ could legitimately be spelled ‘ghoti,’ by using the ‘gh’ sound from ‘enough,’ the ‘o’ sound from ‘women’ and the ‘ti’ sound from ‘action.’
“Surely, you’re overreacting,” says my imaginary friend, “there’s a method to the madness; rules of thumbs you can follow. Repeat after me: I before E, except after C.”
Albeit, it sounds fair, I do not forfeit my right to an argument. I seize the opportunity to shake my head at my weird imaginary friends who use overtly complicated punctuation while speaking. There is no hope. Partly because the so-called rule above is highly inconsistent and has more exceptions than acceptable. For instance, albeit, forfeit, seize, weird, all break this rule, and thanks to Wikipedia’s oft-amusing research, we know that some words break both parts of the rule at once: cheiromancies, eigenfrequencies, cleidomancies, and oneiromancies. There’s statistical evidence too. It really gives you a newfound appreciation for the kids who wish to become spell bee champions. Furthermore, the oddly inconsistent pronunciation rules also saddle third-graders and poets with the inability to rhyme cough, rough, through, and though.
While it’s fun to see such passionate opinions about words, the lexicographers at MW rightly point out:
If we were to remove irregardless from our dictionary it would not cause the word to magically disappear from the language; we do not have that kind of power.
We clearly can’t be gatekeepers to the natural evolution of language and words, be they technically correct or flawed. So, until the next offshoot arrives to overwhelm you, I reiterate that you let living languages do their thing and don’t worry about it alot.