Ctrl-Alt-V for Klipper not working in 4.5

[Duncan]

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. posted on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:34:43 -0500 as
excerpted:

> In <20100812080418.0c7504ad at scorpio>, Jerry wrote:
>>irregardless
> 
> I saw this "word" and your post immediately made no sense to me.
> 
> irrespective = ir- + respective = not respective  (compare:
> irresponsible) regardless = regard + -less = without regard (compare:
> heartless, boundless)
> 
> irregardless = ir- + regard + -less = not without regard ?!

While the double-negative effect grates on me as well, to the point I too 
find it extremely distractive and disruptive, there's an "irregardless" 
entry (tho noting that it's non-standard) in both wikipedia and wictionary.

The wikipedia entry mentions the debate between prescriptivists  and 
descriptivists, and it's only fair to note in discussion of such common 
but non-standard words that there /is/ such a debate.  Further, while the 
prescriptivists will call all usage (with the possible exception of 
deliberate portrayal of the uneducated) incorrect, the descriptivists will 
point to usage statistics (simple number of google hits on the term, when 
contrasted with alternative terms, is a common one available to all those 
with a working Internet connection almost instantly) in support of a 
conclusion that it's reasonably accepted in actual usage, regardless of 
/what/ the rules say.

That said, even the descriptivists will note the controversy, stating that 
people should be aware of the issue and choose their words accordingly.  
In this particular case, because it /is/ a double-negative, a feature 
"with English language support that's incomplete at best" as I once saw 
one programmer describe it, the disruption potential is even higher than 
the usual "non-standard" word case, as it'll very close to force the 
reader to stop, go back, and reparse to try to figure things out.  Given 
that fact and the fact that such disruption is seldom the desired effect, 
regardless of which position a potential user takes on the legitimacy of 
the word itself, most potential users aware of the issue will therefore 
choose an alternative (regardless, as I use in this post, or irrespective) 
less likely to be disruptive to the message they're attempting to convey.  
Of course, some may still deliberately choose to use it, either to portray 
the uneducated as mentioned above, or to raise the visibility of the 
issue, in the latter case likely providing a footnote to the effect that 
they're aware of the issue and chose to use the word anyway.

Such usage-with-footnoting is what I'll often do with the phrase "begs the 
question", for example, as I take a literal interpretation of the 
individual words, that it does in fact beg that the question be asked.

It's thus worthwhile to observe that the usage in question here neither 
appeared to be deliberate portrayal of the uneducated, nor was it 
footnoted.  As such, it was "begging the explanation" followup posts, even 
if usage /was/ deliberate.  (If deliberate usage without the footnote 
occurred to call attention to the issue, counting on just such a reaction 
and in fact deliberately provoking it, as more effective than a footnote 
would be, well played indeed!  But it's a risky strategy as one can never 
be sure it /will/ provoke such a reaction.)

So a link to especially the wikipedia article on the subject would have 
been helpful (and follows), while simply calling it incorrect usage takes 
a clear prescriptivists viewpoint without so much as even mentioning the 
other viewpoint, or explaining why it's an undesirable choice in most 
contexts even for those who disagree with the prescriptivist position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless

(That in turn links wictionary, if you're interested in its take on the 
word.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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