Don’t Never Use No Double Negatives, Irregardless!
Oddly, in a language as quirky and illogical as English, the analysis of double negatives is almost straightforward: they cancel each other out. In ethics, two wrongs may not make a right, but in math, physics and English, two negatives produce a positive. So, the country song “My Dog Never Chased No Cars” is really saying that my dog did chase cars! (Never done him no good, though!)
It’s rare to see double negatives show up in professional communication. Except for one sneaky case: “irregardless”. Although neither you nor I would dream of using it, we see it all the time in e-mails, memos, and even in legal letters.
So, what’s the problem with “irregardless”? Simply that the prefix “ir” means “not”, as in “irregular”. Thus “irregardless” means “not regardless”, which is the opposite of what you meant to say. It’s widely suspected that this error crept into common speech because of confusion with “irrespective”, which is very similar in meaning to “regardless”.
Now, the really sharp eye will have detected that I used a double negative in the second paragraph above: “neither you nor I”. In fact, not only is it OK, it’s the only correct form, and it’s not so much a double negative as a split negative. “Neither you or I” is not correct. But who said English is logical?
And don’t even start with the quadruple negative in the title!