Hacker News Reader

so you agree? "Word Origin and History for irregardless an erroneous word that, etymologically, means the opposite of what it is used to express. Attested in non-standard writing from at least 1870s probably a blend of irrespective and regardless."

View on HN

No, correctness is determined by usage, and Zikes is identifying that the usage has a fairly long history.

One could say the same things about starting a sentence with "so", or using "agree" backwards (the original sense was closer to the form "my statement agrees with you?"), or using "you" instead of "thou"...

Besides being a double negative that results in it not being equivalent to regardless, to your point it's been used for at least 100 years and is still considered non standard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com