Non-words and phrases we should all refudiate.

A short list of the most common non-words in the English language

Unthaw. This should be pretty obvious, but let's analyze this for a moment. It should be simply "thaw", which is to melt, which would make "unthaw" meaning to freeze.

Irregardless. Same problem here; it should be simply "regardless", meaning without regard. By the same logic, "irregardless" would mean "without lack of regard", which is a long way of saying "with regard".

Orientate. Although gaining acceptability in some spheres, it's actually a made-up word. The word "orient" has at least two meanings: as a proper noun, "Orient" means Eastern, commonly when referring to Asian geography. As a verb, "orient" (or "to orient") means to define and give clarity to one's position in space and time, and the act of doing this is what we call orientation. This is where this word began to mutate into "orientate", so just say, "I need to orient myself".

Administrate: Same problem as orientate; we have the verb "to administer" and the noun "administration", which have become mangled together to form the non-verb "administrate". We simply "administer the correct dosage".

Heighth: This is simple; it's length, width, and height.

Regime: This is a real word when referring to a type of autocratic rule, which has its roots in the word regal. However, it's often confused with the word "regimen", which means to follow a strict program ("He followed a daily regimen of diet and exercise"). It has also been completely misused by news reporters who can't find the right word to describe, e.g., a government's tax structure, so they refer to it as a "tax regime". Okay, maybe they actually do think that the tax bill is dictatorial in nature, but probably not.

Refudiate: It's just "refute".

Literally: Yes, it's a real word when used to emphasize that something is not metaphorical, such as "Ali Maow Maalin was literally the last person on Earth to catch smallpox". However, in recent years it has been so overused to describe something metaphorical that it has completely lost its meaning, e.g. "The popular children's book is literally flying off the shelves". Unless this is a scene from a Harry Potter movie, I doubt if these books have actually taken flight.

Inflammable. It's a real word, but unlike unthaw and irregardless, inflammable does not mean "not flammable". In fact, flammable and inflammable mean exactly the same thing. If you want to express that something is not likely to catch fire, use the term non-flammable.

Vica-versa: It's just vice-versa

Preventative: This made-up word is a head scratcher as it has inexplicably crept into English to become a longer form of preventive.

Hung vs Hanged: A picture is hung on a wall, a person is hanged by the neck until dead. That's it, I don't have any other examples of the word hung.

Could of, Would of, Should of: In spoken English, we commonly use the phrases could've or should've, so spelling doesn't count. However, since these words are contractions of could have and should have, we need to spell them as contractions and not use the word of (could of, should of). Obviously, there are no such words as coulda, shoulda, or woulda.

Ingredientses: Quite frankly, I don't even know how to spell this non-word; maybe it's ingrediences or ingredienses. At any rate, you have one ingredient, so it's two ingredients. Same goes for breakfastses.

Daylight Savings Time: The switch from Standard Time to Daylight time is not handled by a bank. We are saving daylight hours, so it's just Daylight Saving Time.

Some non-words have some real practicality, so they have become part of the lexicon.

Mentee: We're all aware of the relationship between a mentor and a mentee, but this is only because there's no other practical word to describe the counterpart to a mentor. The word mentor comes from the Greek myth where Telemachus is placed in the guardianship of his teacher, "Mentor". It's just a coincidence that Mentor has the sound of English words that implies the person in a relationship who does or delivers, such as trainer vs trainee. If we really wanted to be picky here, the opposite of mentor would be telemachus, but I think we can all agree that that's just a bridge too far.

Reiterate: The word "iterate" refers to something that goes through repetitive cycles, as in "this was the fifth iteration of his manuscript". This would appear to make the term "reiterate" redundant, but it actually sounds more natural than if we said "I can't iterate this enough". Go ahead and use it; I won't tell anyone.

Factoid: Although not a real word, it's a convenient way to express that, while something in question is indeed a fact, it is somewhat trivial in nature.

Bacteria: This is actually the pluralized form of bacterium, so it would be improper to say "not a single bacteria was found in the sample". But unless you're speaking with your peers in a research laboratory, you don't really need to use bacterium.