Of course usage triumphs. Sadly in some cases the people of the change period have to endure confusion and annoyance until the new norm takes over and the old way is marked as archaic. Attempting to have some body control the process by issuing fiats to tell users what is right doesn’t work much of the time as The Academie Francaise and other national language gatekeepers know to their chagrin.
Some renowned writers were in the habit of creating neologisms whenever they felt like it and ignoring any critic who said they ought not. Some of these words have since entered the mainstream and their unapproved origins have been forgotten. However this doesn’t mean you can do as you please as non-standard grammar and spelling can produce ambiguity and annoyance in readers.
It may not be possible to pass over such oddities, even if you are feeling generous and flexible, as dealing with a strange turn of phrase makes you ‘drop out’ of what you are reading. A good writer of fact or fiction aims for you to understand their content and to adopt the feelings that they are trying to convey. As soon as you have to stop reading to puzzle out the meaning of a peculiar phrase you lose the flow.
This problem is not restricted to more demanding fiction material or to technical writing. Lightweight fiction that is well down the scale of pretentiousness creates the same break of concentration too if the author is careless. The rise of the e-novel seems to have been accompanied by fall of good copy editing - or any copy editing in some cases. While it is nice to be able to get a new book late at night for for a few dollars and to avoid buying new bookcases to store hardcopy there are too often usage drawbacks.
If you discard the notion that “data” is the plural of “datum”, then all the confusion goes away. Treat it as a mass noun. Like sand, or rain.
The data is good. It has 1000 unique measurements.
The sand is hot on the beach. One part is a grain of sand.
The rain is torrential. One part is a raindrop.
As for the word ‘data’, it is both singular and plural. Most references to data are intended to be to a ‘set of data’ i.e. singular - but it is just as easy to say that the data clearly show that there is no such thing as a black swan (according to Europeans, until they started exploring Australia).
The thing that annoys me most is the use of “The Government are going to…” The Government is clearly a collective noun and should be “The Government is going to…”
The other thing that is even more irritating is the constant misuse of the pronoun “I”, as in “Remember the present she gave to you and I…” Well, you wouldn’t say “Remember the present she gave to I”, would you? Just shows how badly children have been taught English. And few people today get “to lie down” correct these days. I nearly always hear children being told “to go and lay on the floor…” And over the last six months there had been a sudden viral outbreak world-wide in journalism of the use of the term “multiple”, when it simply means “more” or “many”, as in “There have been multiple deaths this year from Covid 19” .
Irregardless seems like a strong, final word. But I think it is a mixed- up word because it’s made up of Regard plus the suffix ‘less’ (without regard) and by the prefix Ir which means Not.
It uses double negatives which could make it: Not without regard?
It does for irregard and irregardably, but makes no change in meaning for irregardless vs regardless.
That’s why I say some of the prefixes just lead to to different forms of the same word root, and not change the meaning.
What I said about the prefix IR changing the meaning of irregardless was tongue in cheek, we all know what it means regardless of its double negatives
About your example of Irradiate vs radiate: the IR is not a prefix in this case as the word comes from the Latin Irradiatus, p.p. of the verb Irradiare= To shine on.
Having said that, I will concede the existence of exceptions to the rule of prefixes, and probably suffixes too.
