Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 07:48:53 -0700
Reply-To: Ben McCafferty <ben@VOLKSCAFE.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Ben McCafferty <ben@VOLKSCAFE.COM>
Subject: Linguistic fun.....NVC
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
From American Heritage (www.dictionary.com):
irregardless
adv : in spite of everything; without regard to drawbacks; "he carried on
regardless of the difficulties" [syn: regardless, irrespective,
disregardless, no matter, disregarding]
[Probably blend of irrespective, and regardless.]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be
correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in
nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the
early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an
improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity
of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term.
Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with
redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder
for decades and will probably continue to be so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
[Buy it]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And then there's flammable vs. inflammable:
flam·ma·ble ( P ) Pronunciation Key (flm-bl)
adj.
Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; inflammable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[From Latin flammre, to set fire to, from flamma, flame. See bhel-1 in
Indo-European Roots.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
flamma·bili·ty n.
flamma·ble n.
Usage Note: Historically, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
However, the presence of the prefix in- has misled many people into assuming
that inflammable means ³not flammable² or ³noncombustible.² The prefix -in
in inflammable is not, however, the Latin negative prefix -in, which is
related to the English -un and appears in such words as indecent and
inglorious. Rather, this -in is an intensive prefix derived from the Latin
preposition in. This prefix also appears in the word enflame. But many
people are not aware of this derivation, and for clarity's sake it is
advisable to use only flammable to give warnings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And finally, my favorite:
3 entries found for momentarily.
mo·men·tar·i·ly ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mmn-târ-l)
adv.
1. For a moment or an instant.
2. Usage Problem. In a moment; very soon.
3. Moment by moment; progressively.
Usage Note: Momentarily is widely used in speech to mean ³in a moment,² as
in The manager is on another line, but she'll be with you momentarily. This
usage rarely leads to ambiguity since the intended sense can usually be
determined on the basis of the tense of the verb and the context.
Nonetheless, many critics hold that the adverb should be reserved for the
senses ³for a moment,² and the extended usage is unacceptable to 59 percent
of the Usage Panel.
Ben McCafferty
ben@volkscafe.com
Volks Cafe
1823 Soquel Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
831-426-1244
http://volkscafe.com
