irregardless, 1876 (OED: 1912)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

A much earlier Southern _irregardless_, posted here a few
years ago by Bonnie Taylor-Blake:

1795 _City Gaz. & Daily Advertiser_ (Charleston, S. Carolina)
(1796) 23 June 3 But death, irregardless of tenderest ties,
Resolv'd the good _Betty,_ at length, to bereave.

We have five additional examples from the decade before 1870,
from various regions.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 01:17:40PM -0700, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
> From Google Books:
>
> "As far as my knowledge extends among the intelligent colored people
> they do not desire their children and the white children to go to
> school togehter. They want schools and are willing for the whites to
> have schools, and the democratic party is in favor of educating the
> children irregardless of race, color, or previous condition."
> Testimony of J. G. Taylor, resident of Onachita Parish, La., Dec. 18,
> 1876, in Report of the Sub-Committee of the Committee on Privileges
> and Elections of the United States Senate, Vol. 1, 187, p. 476. The
> speaker repeats the word in the following paragraph so this is likely
> not a typo.
>
> The OED's first cite is from Wentworth's 1912 American Dialect
> Dictionary, which puts the word in western Indiana; this quote
> suggests an earlier Southern origin.
>
> Geoff Nunberg
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org