Irregardless, I'm Heartbroken

I'll preface this post by saying that I do not consider myself any kind of grammar nazi. Far from it actually (primarily because I suck at my mother tongue).

That being said, I do believe that there should be some minimum requirement to which one must adhere to existing rules and words, the violation of which would mark one for physical punishment.

Ok.

Recently I was giving a friend a bunch of crap about using "irregardless". "It's not word, " I said. Just for fun I looked it up on Merriam-Webster. "Aw crap, " I said.

Irregardless, it seems, is a freakin' word (at least in MW it says, "Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.").

It's absolutely ridiculous! A "word" should not become a word just because people are lazy and not thorough. It's one thing if something becomes a word because it's jargon or some particular bit of vernacular. It's quite another if it becomes a word simply because people use it incorrectly and don't care enough to change their habits.

Bleah.

Or maybe I'll just start using a different dictionary site for my definitions.