Irregardless

So I've been ill and in bed. With nothing to do but moan and sniffle, I've been catching up on my TBR pile. Nothing spectacular, just Regencies. More research if you will. However, I found something in one of these books that almost made my head explode.

The word -- irregardless.

Now contrary to popular opinion, this is NOT a word. I know, I know, I used to use it. Until somebody told me not to. So I'm passing on this great advice -- Don't use this word, it doesn't exist.

Just for fun, I dragged myself out of bed and grabbed my 18 pound New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English Language and looked up irregardless. It wasn't there. So I looked up regardless just to see if somehow they might have put it under regardless (I knew it wasn't there, I just wanted to cover all my bases. See, I'm still in research mode.)

regardless: 1 adj. (usually with of) paying no heed or attention
2 adv. (pop.) without consideration of the situation, consequences

And there on Page 53 of the book I was reading was this sentence.

Straining, grasping for something she did not understand but wanted irregardless.

(Let me also add, this was in a sex scene as well. Go figure.)

This book was published in 2006 (probably written in 2004) by Ivy Books, an imprint of Ballantine, which is owned by Random House. So yes, it was pubbed by one of the Big 6.

So, a writer writes the book. Presumably she shows it to either a crit partner or a few beta readers. She has an agent who reads the book. Which then gets passed to an editor who also reads the book. Then to a copy editor. And probably a few interns along the way. How in God's name can seven people read this book and not fix that word? The only reason I can come up with is that they skip reading the sex scenes as well and didn't see it.

Did nobody do a line edit? What does that tell you about the state of affairs in the publishing industry? I mean, I can see a few typo's, a misplaced comma or three, hey, I can even see the occasional misspelling of a word. But to see a word that is not even in the dictionary -- well, we're not in outer space where made-up words are the norm.

I feel bad for the author. I really do. To have such a glaring newbie mistake printed for all the world to see. REGARDLESS of who ended up with the book in the final editing stages, someone should have found this mistake.

Question -- How many times have you found a mistake like this? Or not found one, only to have your beta's or critter tell you? And, would you rather feel stupid now, or wait until you're published?