‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gymble in the wabe

Today’s episode of Little Miss Know-It-All: Words that don’t mean anything.

A friend reminded me about the non-word “irregardless”, which is so insidious that Microsoft Word doesn’t even think it’s a spelling error. If you’re already confused, put your eye right next to your computer screen. I’ll type slowly.

IRREGARDLESS IS NOT A WORD. YOU MEAN “REGARDLESS”. IRREGARDLESS HAS A DOUBLE NEGATIVE, SO IF IT DID MEAN ANYTHING, IT WOULD BE THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY. MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO US ALL A FAVOR AND JUST STOP TALKING.

I’m telling you, I would be institutionalized if I didn’t have this blog.

“Undoubtably” is a nice try, and I see where you went wrong. You mean “indubitably.” Or “undoubtedly.” I’m just going to tell myself that you really meant to write one of these words, but your fingers slipped on the keybwsedf. It could happen to anyone.

“Absorbtion” does not exist either. When you want to talk about how well something absorbs a liquid, you say “absorption”. For example, when I can’t take out my rage on this blog, I mop up my angry flecks of spittle with my sleeve. The absorption only takes a few seconds.

“Impactful” IS NOT A WORD! Stop sending me documents explaining how something will be impactful when you really mean that it’s going to be influential.

One last thing: if “unthaw” was a word (which it's not, let me assure you), it would mean “freeze”. THINK, people! How hard can this be?