Month: March 2008

More about “Irregardless”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation

I came across a word — “irrespective” — that seems to explain how “irregardless” got coined.

Problem:
As I wrote last October, “irregardless” is meaningless in that it means the opposite of what is intended.

Explanation:
People use “irregardless” when they mean the adverb “regardless”.

I now believe that another source of confusion is the fact that “regardless” and “irrespective” have the same meaning.

Blend these two words together, and you get “irregardless”.

Solution:
“Regardless” or “Irrespective”

“Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon: …”

Pronouns

I heard this during an excellent performance of Othello over the weekend.

Problem:
I’m not sure about William Shakespeare’s time, but “myself” by today’s standard is not the right pronoun for this sentence.

Explanation:
At the risk of treading sacred ground, I must say that I had to wince when I heard “myself will be your surgeon” in the Alley Theatre’s excellent production of Shakespeare’s Othello over the weekend.

I’m not blaming the Alley production company. According to Scribd, the actor who played the part of Othello — David Rainey — said it exactly according to the script.

Perhaps Shakespeare wrote this line as shorthand for “Sir, for your hurts, I myself will be your surgeon: …” and simply left out the nominative singular pronoun “I” because it was the style of the time.

It’s correct to follow “I” with “myself” when one wants to emphasize the “I” (ditto for “you” followed by “yourself”, “he” followed by “himself”, etc.).

In other words, one can emphasize a nominative pronoun by immediately following it with its counterpart reflexive pronoun (e.g., “I myself” or “he himself”).

However, it’s incorrect to use a reflexive pronoun as a substitute for its counterpart nominative pronoun.

Solution:
“Sir, for your hurts, I will be your surgeon.” or “Sir, for your hurts, I myself will be your surgeon.”

“… in the care of cold water.”

Outsider's Perspective, Possessives

I saw this at the end of a sentence on a Tide laundry-detergent bottle.

Problem:
This phrase makes no sense.

Explanation:
“Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean in the care of cold water.” is the full sentence at the top of the label on the back of a “2X Ultra Tide for Coldwater” bottle that I have in my laundry room.

Huh?

“The care of cold water” is the same as “cold water’s care”, just as “the daughter of Jim” is the same as “Jim’s daughter”.

Substituting, we get “Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean in cold water’s care.”

Huh (again)?

It seems that the writing of this label was outsourced to a non-native speaker of English who might have written the label in his language first and then translated it literally to English.

Squinting my eyes while reading the label again and wondering what the writer wanted to say, I got “Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean with cold water.”

Solution:
“… with cold water.”