Grammar Moses: Making a spectacle of 'irrespective'

Tom Peterson read our story about a former Buffalo Grove middle school teacher charged with sexual assault who removed his ankle bracelet and is in the wind.

At the end of the story, we say his next court hearing will be held whether he is there or not. We wrote, "The next hearing in Gibori's case is Jan. 4 irrespective of whether he is found."

"Deep into this story I found the word 'irrespective.' Don't see that one too much these days. Wouldn't 'regardless' be better?"

I must admit I'd never given much thought about "regardless" versus "irrespective."

I found a lot of quibbling debate about subtle differences depending on which part of speech you're using them for, but in common parlance people use them interchangeably.

Linguist Bryan A. Garner says so, and I am a fan of his logic.

What you don't want to do is use "irregardless."

First, it's a portmanteau of "regardless" and "irrespective." But it's also a double negative. The ir- prefix means it's not what follows. And the -less suffix means it's not what precedes it.

So if "irregardless" were a real word, it would mean "with regard." And that is never how it's used.

Scrabble masters

Insouciant sports columnist Jim O'Donnell (his word, not mine) dropped me a note about a column I wrote last month regarding the new Scrabble Dictionary.

He thought it would be a hoot for you to share your most brilliant Scrabble move or the best one you've ever witnessed.

"Would people really remember that?" I asked, knowing that Jim has an eidetic memory.

"My eldest brother Dennis and I used to have quite a Scrabble rivalry; he got real good when he was working with a late generation of Mad Men in NYC in the early '70s and would regularly compete in tournaments at NYU and other rack 'n' roll spots around Manhattan. One night at home, our father (Raymond, an exec with United Airlines), caught a hanging "d" and played "judicial" on the bottom row-left from Triple Word to Triple Word. His score - with the 50-point bonus for clearing his rack and the Triple-Triple - was huge. We were humbled."

Your turn, dear reader. I know some of you must be Scrabble Heads. Let's hear it.

One more round

You seem to be having fun with the mondegreens, so why not keep it going?

I mentioned a few columns ago that Augie Tonne's favorite mondegreen was "O Come Au-gie Faithful, joyful and triumphant."

It's understandable. Kids who mishear song lyrics have a much smaller world view, and everything is all about them. So it was natural for Augie to inject himself into the song.

Heck, I thought Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins" was singing directly to me: "Jim Jiminy Jim Jiminy Jim Jim Cheroo."

Gayle Politowicz has a similar issue with the theme of "The Flintstones."

"Especially the introduction jingle when they sang the song directly for me: 'We'll have a Gayle time.' Only when I aged out of watching cartoons did I realize all along they were really singing 'We'll have a gay old time.'"

Jane Charmelo had a trio of them: "In The Who's 'Baba O'Riley,' I thought the lyric was 'teenage waitress,' not 'teenage wasteland.' In Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild,' I thought it was 'every bit of thunder' instead of 'heavy metal thunder.' And the one my husband really never let me live down: Van McCoy's '(Do) the Hustle,' I thought it was 'Do the Hot Dog.'"

Jane, you'll be happy to know that the big 1962 hit by Dee Dee Sharp indeed was "Mashed Potato Time."

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.