Which regardless or irregardless; flammable or inflammable?

I use flammable or inflammable according to my mood and sentence structure. I don't use irregardless.

I don't, I speak Dutch.

I say flammable. Inflammable means the same thing, but it seems awkward. I don't think I say it much, but I would use regardless. I don't think irregardless is even a real word, is it?

I didn't think irregardless was a real word, either, but it's in my dictionary (Random House Webster's) with the note "nonstandard" next to it. Regardless, I never use "irregardless"!

All of them.

*Huh?*

I guess that's how language evolves. When enough people use a certain word, it ends up in the dictionary. "Ain't" never used to be in the dictionary either.

I don't know...irreflammable.

Yeah, it's a funny thing. On the one hand, I tend to notice grammar and diction mistakes a lot, and improper usage frequently annoys me. On the other hand, I'm all for language growing and evolving--I think it's such an interesting phenomenon. Since I study ancient languages, I see a lot of it; but in English, I'm a little more close-minded about it, I guess. So when people use "they" as a third-person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, I'm all for it. But if they say something like "Someone gave my brother and I a game," I get really annoyed. I guess you have to pick your battles.

I totally agree!! In fact, I almost mentioned before that the whole thing fascinates me, but I decided not to sound like such a nerd.

I use "they" that way all the time. It feels comfortable because I've heard it used that way all my life. There are a few other cases where using proper grammar sometimes feels really awkward to me, like not ending a sentence with a preposition. I wouldn't do it in a business letter, but speaking or writing informally it sometimes flows better that way.

That whole "brother and I" thing bugs me, too, but I find it amusing. I think people were corrected so many times when they were children ("My brother and I are going to the store", dear, not "my brother and me") that they took it a bit too far and now they think that's always the right way.

A lot of the more persnickety rules in English grammar (split infinitives, prepositions at the end of a sentence, "they" as a singular pronoun) are relatively recent. Some 18th and 19th century grammarians (with, IMHO, more time than sense) promulgated various rules of English grammar. Some were descriptive; more were prescriptive: describing English as the author felt it should be, rather than it actually was. Latin was then the language of the learned. Many of these new rules had a distinctly latinate flavor. English only owes a portion of its heritage to Latin; I think it's silly to pretend I'm speaking Latin with an odd vocabulary. I cheerfully ignore these latter-day prescriptions.

Perhaps I'm tired, but can you give me an example of they used in the sigular other than we refer to our fellow SC user 'they' (who would probably take offense at being thought of as gender-neutral)?

I can't stand trying to re-word a sentence so there's no preposition at the end. Sometimes I have a hard time doing that, without it winding up sounding real dorky. "I don't know which box this goes in." Try changing that one, where it still sounds casual and natural.

Sometimes I make up my own words. If I have a concept that's hardly ever talked about, and I can't think of an existing word for it, I make one up.

You'd love the author Lewis Carrol and the language Esperanto then.
the last phrase I coined was 'narrative spectral energy'. Is that what you mean? ..or more like spoonerisms?

An example would be "Each person should do as they please." "Each person" is a singular subject, so the pronoun and verb should be singular as well: "Each person should do as he or she pleases." But it's a pain to always use (hey, look at that split infinitive!) "he and/or she," or "him/her"; some people choose just to use (no split that time!) "they/them" instead. I'm all for it.

That's my theory about the "brother and I/me" thing, too! You're the first person I've talked to who came up with the same explanation for it!

I agree. I think grammar and the study of language should be about what the people themselves say when they speak or write. I can understand wanting to have some ground rules so that people understand each other when they want to communicate. But language is fluid, not static. It's meant to grow and change, and it bothers me when people try too hard to impede that.

Yeah. You know the feeling where you feel like letting loose and just saying and doing what you feel, no matter how it looks? It's like an intoxicated feel, but you are sober. I call the act of doing that "Anythinging" because just about anything goes, sensical or not. It's an attitude. I don't know of any existing word that accurately labels it. The feel of letting your eyes lose focus on things, where you let the room kind of spin, I call those "dizzy-sways." The kind of ecstatic feeling you sometimes get for no reason at all, where you laugh just to be laughing, and you are ecstatic just to be content, those are "happy stupors."

I do that most of the time. I tend to conduct global cosmic energy flows to music like the sorcerers aprentice. I sing nonsense to my kittens all the time. My back has been bad so I trained my constant attention demanding cat to jump into my arms.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?irregardless
usage Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

I agree with SueBee's theory on why people use "and I" instead of "and me" in cases like that. I know that's why I make that mistake fairly often.
Is the rule related to "subjective pronouns" (I) versus "objective pronouns" (me)?

How the rule goes, if you were to drop the "(other person) and" would it sound right? "She made pancakes for Bill and I" is improper because you wouldn't say "She made pancakes for I." "Bill and me went to the state fair" is improper because you wouldn't say "Me went to the state fair." I hope you like fairs and pancakes.

I like that method... if only they'd taught me that 25 years ago. thanks.

Exactly! The only people I can imagine saying that differently are English professors or people like Greg's mother on Dharma & Greg. (If you've seen that TV show, you'll know what I mean.)

Great minds...

Thanks for the info on "irregardless"... very interesting.

Yes. "I/he" are subject pronouns; "me/him" are object pronouns. The errors occur when people substitute the one for the other. It's funny, I didn't used to understand those rules until I started studying languages in which nouns (and pronouns) have cases, like nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), and genitive (indirect object). While cases can make learning a language that much more complicated, once you grasp the system it makes it much clearer which forms are the appropriate ones to use. The problem is that we tend not to learn the particulars of English grammar in a way that makes all this clear.

The correct ones for the situation. Despite the same denotation, there are different connotations.

what are the different connotations?

Reduce the use of needless syllables! Eschew obfuscation!

I actually thought about saying it, but Brian's earlier comment came to mind!
Inflammable is more aggressive. A log of slightly green pine wood is flammable. A log of pine wood coated in gasoline is inflammable. A fabric coated in a fire resistant chemical will still burn if you put it in a fire... it is flammable. The fabric without that chemical will turn into an inferno from touching a candle... it is inflammable. And lastly, this only makes sense if you have tried it before: tissue paper is inflammable, paper towels are flammable.
Of course, I suppose that flammable is kind of a blanket term which can be used in any of these cases, but still, inflammable is more specific to something which is not only capable of burning, but capable of burning quickly, exploding, or being engulfed in flames quickly. After a day in the rain, the log was still flammable. After we watered our christmas tree, it didnt seem so inflammable!
Can you taste the difference? Its subtle, but look for it.

The difference between irregardless and regardless is simpler. Regardless (of whether that is true or not). Looking past that. Ignoring that.
Irregardless (of the fact (true)). Moving on. Overcoming.

I tend to agree with you, though I've found no dictionary that mentions any difference between them, subtle or not.

Flammable. I don't believe I use the other ones. I might say something like "without regard to..." or "lacking regard to..." I think there is something about those words that irritates me.

Absofudginglutely! I used to work in a business environment and had to read a lot of stupid memos and business letters. One of my pet peeves was people who used the word "myself" when the correct word should have been "I" or "me". They seem to think it sounds more "business-like" or something!

Yeah, the "myself" thing amuses me. Usually people who misuse it are all puffed up and full of themselves, and I just laugh at them (to myself, of course).