Lexicographers are neither linguists nor philologists, and any among the latter two worth their salt will tell you that "irregardless" is an erroneous and contradictory word, and further point out that whomever the neologist was that originally coined it made the mistake of double negative, such that "irregardless" must mean "with regard" as opposed to "regardless," and, as such, is superfluous.

If enough people use a word, it’s a word. Many words were formed as mistakes, “apron” and “tornado” for example.

Dictionaries follow how people are actually speaking, not the other way around.

> If enough people use a word, it’s a word.

Whether or not it is a word is not at issue. Any group of letters forms a word. "Hsyxff" is a word I just made up. The point is "irregardless" is an incorrect word, and no matter how many say wrong is right, it can never change the fact that wrong is still wrong.

> Many words were formed as mistakes, “apron” and “tornado” for example.

These words are not self-contradictory, nor were they formed "as mistakes."

> Dictionaries follow how people are actually speaking, not the other way around.

Dictionaries do not specify which words are spoken, they merely list words in alphabetical order along with their definitions. Dictionaries contain many words that are no longer spoken, such as overmorrow, lunting and groak, counter-examples that prove your assertion wrong.

In order for something to be recognized as a word, it needs to have meaning and be understood by more than 1 person. For brevity's sake, when I said "it's a word", I really meant "it's a word that's used and recognized by a large subset of people, large enough that lexicographers at dictionaries have taken notice".

"Irregardless" is not incorrect if enough people start using it that way. That's simply how languages work. You can have an opinion on specific words, but you cannot -assert- that using them is "incorrect". It's your opinion, not fact. Everyone also understands people when they use irregardless.

"These words are not self-contradictory, nor were they formed "as mistakes.""

Apron was originally "napron". It formed this spelling from people misunderstanding "a napron" as "an apron". Tornado should be tronado, because it comes from spanish tronada. Regardless (or irregardless? :)), the English language has many, many such words. My point is English already has so many words that are "mistakes", so arguing about "irregardless" doesn't make sense. No language used by humans is without illogical things.

"[Dictionaries] merely list words in alphabetical order along with their definitions"

Yes. They have criteria for when a -new- word becomes used enough that it enters the public lexicon, or an existing word gains a new usage. Like "literally" and "irregardless". You can't say it's wrong anymore when enough people are using it that way.

You are simply wrong, at least about linguists.

You are wrong on both accounts.

Please cite any mainstream linguist who agrees with your take.

   When a word is nonstandard it means it is “not conforming in pronunciation, grammatical construction, idiom, or word choice to the usage generally characteristic of educated native speakers of a language."[0]

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

You proved my point. That says it doesn’t correspond to the usage of a particular social group (educated people), which is a scientific statement. It doesn’t say it’s “wrong”, which is a value judgment.

Obviously, linguists don’t dispute the existence of more or less prestigious varieties of languages.