We're back this week with a couple of expressions that are often mis-spoken because they're "mis-heard." A few months ago we discussed the silliness of "all of the sudden" instead of the correct "all of A sudden." Here is another of those, followed by a non-word used as a word:

Raise your hand if you've ever heard someone (if it was you, you don't need to raise your hand) say, "For all intensive purposes, ..."? Now I'm not going to be nosy...perhaps your purposes are indeed very intensive. But being your Grammar Granny, I must inform you that the proper phrase is, "For all intents and purposes, ...". It's a pretty hackneyed expression and so I wouldn't recommend using it too often, but if you're going to write or say it, try to be very intensive about your accuracy in usage :-)

And then, regarding "irregardless." Please don't. RegardLESS already means "without regard to," or informally, "Nevertheless." When you include the prefix "ir" you are making a negative into a double negative, which actually (re)creates the positive. So "irregardless" ends up meaning the exact opposite of what you think you're saying. In the comments, someone is bound to tell me that they've found "irregardless" in the dictionary. Don't bother. While Granny is somewhat tolerant of language changes as a result of increased usage, such as nouns "morphing" into verbs, she is very INtolerant regarding dictionaries seeking to become popular bestsellers by accepting flat-out errors once they've become commonplace.

We must have standards, regardless.

hat tip: Lyric

Labels: Language, Words On Wednesday