Pronounce and Enunciate, Please

Maybe I'm a just a pompous snob when it comes to people's use of the English language. I just feel that as adults we should stop saying words like "liberry" and replace them with words like "library". There are far too many Americans out there murdering the English language every time they open their mouths. If you can't use the language without people squinting at you with their mouths open, perhaps you should consider a vow of silence. The exception to the rule would be the folks among us who learned English as a second language - kudos to them for comprehending the mish-mash of rules and contradictions that most of us born into English-speaking families seem to take for granted.

Now I'm not talking about folks with accents or drawls and I'm not hammering cultural differences. I'm talking about everyday people who say "ax" instead of "ask", "upmost" instead of "utmost", "probly" instead of "probably". Is it a learned behavior or is it genetic? Is it geographic or demographic? Is it laziness or... yes, I think it's laziness. Laziness and bad habits. Maybe no one took the time to explain to this person that the word is "PRErogative" not "PERogative". Maybe they've never read a book beyond "Green eggs and ham" so they have nothing telling them otherwise. Maybe they just don't care how child-like their speech sounds.

Some words that probably (not probly) shouldn't be part of our vernacular still make it in simply because we use the word enough for it to be generally accepted as a real word. "Ain't" comes to mind right away. It's not a proper word because it's a contraction of two words, one of which isn't an actual word to begin with. Because "are" + "not" = "aren't", should we assume that "ai" + "not" = "ain't"? That being said, I use the word "ain't" myself. Ain't that hypocritical?

Supposedly (not "supposively" or "supposibly"), the English language is comprised of rules that must be followed in order to speak or write it correctly, but people disregard these rules so consistently that it comes as no surprise the words they use are mangled as well. "Idn't" and "wadn't" are mispronunciations of "isn't" and wasn't" - or are they? Who dictates the proper pronunciation of words? Merriam-Webster, for one. "Idn't" is not in the dictionary but the correct way to pronounce "isn't" IS in the dictionary. We've all agreed (well, maybe not you and I, but our ancestors agreed) to a set of rules governing the use of the language. While those rules do change and words are constantly being added to our vocabulary, there are some that will just never fit.

Which leads me to the word that got me thinking about all of this to begin with: "irregardless". I've found that it's commonly held to be a combination of "irrespective" and "regardless", but when I hear it I can only think that this person is trying to combine "irrelevant" with "regardless" - I don't believe that most of them would ever even use the word "irrespective". "Irregardless" is a horrible non-word that should be stricken from existence.

Yet so many people use this travesty of speech every day. Intelligent people. People who read books. And every time I hear it, I cringe and shake my head. "Regardless" is a word and an elegant one at that. "Without regard". Perfect. "Irrelevant" (more so than "irrespective") is also another wonderfully elegant word, powerful yet passive at the same time. When someone mashes the two words together to make "irregardless", I want to choke them. "-Less" already says "without" so there is no need to repeat the same sentiment with "ir-." It creates a double-negative turning the word back into it's root form of "regard". This is not a pronunciation issue, it's not the difference between to-ma-to and to-mah-to. This is a generally unaccepted word that does not exist according to the rules of good grammar and while listed in many dictionaries, all seem to agree that it is not a standard English word and should be avoided.

I never say "irregardless". I do say "regardless" and "irrelevant" - perhaps more often than I should. But, regardless, that's irrelevant. At the very least, I use them correctly.