语言与文风2020economist.com
“Irregardless”只是英语中一大类不规范用词的一个例子
“Irregardless” is part of a penumbra of unorthodox English words
导读
这篇文章讨论英语中一类“半吊子”非正统词汇（如 irregardless），探讨它们为何被视为错误、又为何在口语中流行。对写作者来说，这涉及用词规范与语言演变的张力：该不该为一词之争较真，以及“听起来高级”如何影响措辞选择。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
留意那些“听起来更正式”的生造或误用词，它们往往是作者不自信或刻意拔高的信号，写作时优先用自己真正掌握的词汇。
- 02
区分“规定性”与“描述性”的用词争议：若面向编辑或正式读者，遵守主流规范；若记录口语或人物声音，可保留原味，但应是有意为之。
- 03
词义会随使用漂移（如 factoid），写作者要警觉自己用的词是否已被大众改义，必要时加注或换词避免歧义。
- 04
当人物说话不精确时，把这种不精确当作人物刻画的材料，而非统一修改成标准表达。
HN 评论精选
用“听起来高级”的词常暴露说话者的不自信；词源较真也要看是否切题。
我记得上世纪80年代，我妈妈对时任澳大利亚总理鲍勃·霍克使用“irregardless”一词频频翻白眼、啧啧摇头。霍克表面上很有魅力，但没人会说他是个特别善于思考的沟通者。回头看，这其实是文化水平不高的人的一种典型行为：采纳一个听起来比自身词汇库更高级的词，并假定它足够“像样”，可以用于正式场合。（HN 上最近有个帖子讨论用 decimate 当作 destroy 的替代拼写，原因类似。）我觉得鲍里斯·约翰逊是个十足的坏影响，但我记得有一次他上英国电视节目《Have I Got News For You》，剪辑对他明显不公：他当时在说，把小型四轮车叫“quad-bikes”在词源上站不住脚。他的意思（我猜，因为节目没播出论证过程）是“bike”是 bicycle 的讹变，而 bicycle 源于“bi”，指两个轮子。
Jedd查看英文原文
I recall my mum, it must have been in the 1980's, engaging in much eye-rolling and tut-tutting at our (Australia) then prime minister, Bob Hawke, using the word 'irregardless'. Bob was ostensibly quite charismatic, but no one could accuse him of being an especially thoughtful communicator. In retrospect it's fairly typical behaviour for less literate types to adopt a word that sounds sophisticated beyond their standard repertoire , and assume it's sufficiently cromulent for formal use. (A very recent thread on HN was around the use of the word 'decimate' as an alternative spelling for 'destroy', for similar reasons.) I think Boris Johnson is a profoundly bad force in the universe, but I do recall feeling the editing of one of his appearances on a UK TV show (Have I Got News For You) was patently unfair, as he was asserting that calling small four wheeled vehicles 'quad-bikes' was etymologically unsound. His point (I imagine - the broadcast did not include the justification) was that 'bike' is a corruption of bicycle, in turn rooted from 'bi', referring to the two wheels.
语言上的盲从与表达不精确，说明精确表达本身就是稀缺能力。
“irregardless”的流行，揭示了人类思维和社交的一个很重要的特性：大多数人（至少说英语的人）很乐意照搬别人的行为而不问为什么。更复杂的例子来自一些研究，人们很难讲清布尔运算符（尤其是 OR 和 XOR）的区别。我的意思是，这提醒我们为什么需要软件工程师，以及为什么廉价外包、AI 和更易用的工具（比如图形化编程语言）没能取代他们：人们思考和表达太不精确，连软件需求都说不清楚，更别说实现了。
swiley查看英文原文
The popularity of the word “irregardless” demonstrates a property of human thought and socialization that’s very important to most people here: that the majority of people (at least those that speak English) are perfectly happy copying other people’s behavior without asking why. More complex examples of this come from studies where people struggle to communicate the difference between Boolean operators (specifically OR and XOR.) My point is that this is a reminder of why we have software engineers and why cheap contractors, AI, and easier to use tooling (such as “graphical programming languages) haven’t been able to replace them: people think and speak too imprecisely to communicate even just software specifications correctly let alone implement them.
反对相对主义：判断用词对错要看普通读者能否一眼识别，而非一律宽容。
作者似乎在主张“irregardless”没问题，在意它就是太较真、爱虚荣。他把它和 television、flammable 这类同样构词不正规的词相提并论。但二者有显著差别：要看出那些词构词不规范，需要懂希腊语和拉丁语；而任何熟练掌握当代英语的人都能一眼看出“irregardless”的问题——它明显是个蠢词，这让它更蠢。
daffy查看英文原文
The author seems to claim that `irregardless' is all right and that caring about it is caring too much and vain. He compares it to other malformed words such as `television' and `flammable'. But there seems to be a significant difference between these and that. While recognizing the malformedness of these words require knowledge of Greek and Latin, recognizing that of `irregardless' is trivial for anyone who is proficient in current English: it is obviously a stupid word, and that makes it stupider.
词义漂移常常把原义颠倒，写作者要提防自己沿用已被改义的词。
我最喜欢也最受不了的语言演变例子是 factoid。它本义是“类似事实的东西”（即假事实），只因被印刷品反复传播就被信以为真。如今，那些大概正在传播 factoid 的写作者，把词义反转成了“一个小而真实的事实”。
irthomasthomas查看英文原文
My favorite/worst example of language evolution is the word factoid. Factoid literally meant a thing resembling a fact (i.e. a false fact) which is believed to be true after being repeated in print. Now, those same writers who where presumably spreading factoids, have inverted its meaning to be 'a minor, but true fact' [0]. [0] http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_factoids.html
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