Irregardless

This morning I heard someone on the radio use the word irregardless, and it's not like I was listening to some informal, non-serious show. This guy was supposed to be professional and this word really bugs me. It sounds so bad. But it is in most dictionaries now with a definition of: "nonstandard form of regardless." Some dictionaries even write "use regardless instead."

In some languages, double negatives are perfectly normal. In French, people almost always use 2 words - ne and pas - to make a negative statement. (Je ne sais pas = I don't know) But in spoken form, they frequently leave off the ne. In English, however, double negatives are frowned upon but have been used in spoken form for awhile. When I hear an American use a double negative, I can't help but see them as being not very bright. I guess with the word regardless, it doesn't sound much like a negative but the suffix -less is clearly a negative. It just has a not-so-harsh sound so people feel a need to add a negative prefix.

If you ever use that word around me I will cringe inside and probably use great restraint to keep from correcting you. I would definitely correct you if you were a close friend but I don't think you'd eve get to be a close friend of mine is you're a user of irregardless.