Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Blossom]

My teacher has told me there is no such word as, �irregardless.� But I have been told that in the New York Times of 8 February 1993 the following sentence appeared.

�Irregardless of the benefit to children from what he calls his �crusade to rescue American education,� his own political miscalculations and sometimes deliberate artlessness have greatly contributed to his present difficulties.�

Advice, please. Should I avoid using the word?

[asterix]

Irregardless is not a proper word.
It is used by uneducated people in place of regardless, which is a proper word, and is what they are trying to say.
Newspapers do not always use proper grammar.

[Blossom]

Many thanks, Asterix. That is good advice to a student like me.