I think I figured out how the non-sensical non-word "irregardless" came into use. Someone -perhaps a Bush or a Walker - unthinkingly merged "irrespective" and "regardless" and others unthinkingly copied it.
How "I couldn't care less" became "I could care less" remains a mystery.
James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.
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As for "I couldn't care less", we tend to mangle the negative in Southern New England: "He bangs a left at the Packie to get home; and so don't I"
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it's a regionalism writ large?
same difference
ReplyDelete:-)