Early appearances of "irregardless"

[Jonathan Lighter]

UrbanD. shows no examples of the synonymous "unscrew," though they do exist on Usenet. Ex.:

1999 [http://groups.google.com/group/alt.adoption/msg/a04d31b875ce43c5?hl=en&] : Lots of therapists and "experts"  running around making money off of the notion that adoption screws you up - and only therapy will unscrew you.

I can see "Unscrew you!" becoming the retort of choice in the looming Robotic Age. Stay tuned! (The farewell salutation of choice.)

JL



Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society
Poster:       Laurence Horn
Subject:      Re: Early appearances of "irregardless"
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At 7:24 PM -0700 5/5/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>My strong recollection is that by 1973 "Unfuck you" was already
>proposed as a "more logical" replacement of "Fuck you."  I never
>heard anyone actually use it, because it was also "more idiotic."
>
>   Scores of Usenet exx., however.
>

Many alluding to a program "unfuck.exe", which presumably
accomplishes the task of setting right was his been fucked up.  This
is also one of those rare cases in which urbandictionary.com has
something useful to contribute:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=unfuck

LH

>James Harbeck  wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: James Harbeck
>Subject: Re: Early appearances of "irregardless"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>Yes, and in fact there's also "unfuck".
>
>Which could imply the possibility of giving (and getting) back
>virginity... Literally, of course, fucking is not a reversible
>action. But I've seen and used "unfuck" in humorous contexts enough
>times. There's a popular quip seen mainly in email forwards but also
>on buttons and so forth: "OK, I take it back. Unfuck you." I've also
>used it to mean "make something no longer fucked up," as in undo some
>damage that has been done, and that _is_ a reversible meaning, but I
>don't think that's a very common usage.
>
>James Harbeck.
>
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