Following Julian Dyer's article in Digest 971219, I commented,
"Irregardless of the paper acceleration debate,  ... "

MMD readers know that I take pride in proper English spelling and usage,
and I received notes about it from well-known MMD authors, e.g.:

> Robbie!  "Irregardless" -- you will not find it in the dictionary!
>
> Bruce Clark


> Robbie, my dear, "irregardless" is a double negative and considered a
> non-word.  No worry, there was a newspaper columnist who used the word
> in his column recently.  You're in good company.
>
> Joyce Brite


I remember muttering that the spell-checker didn't have the word in its
dictionary; I should have checked the _big_ book.  It might tell me to
use 'regardless' or 'irrespective'.

Thank you for writing, my friends, for otherwise I wouldn't learn !

Robbie Rhodes