regardless.
“Regardless” (= without regard to) should not be used for “despite” (= in spite of). E.g.:
o “Take heart. Regardless [read ‘Despite’] what happened Saturday, the Broncos will be performing in the Super Bowl Sunday.” Mark Wolf, “Get Over the Broncos: Others Need Support,” Rocky Mountain News (Denver), 7 Jan. 1997, at C2.
o “He looked more like a public relations man than a football coach — regardless [read ‘despite’] what was printed on the large, white board.” Randy Kindred, “New Illini Coach Turner ‘Building Relationships,'” Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill.), 6 June 1997, at B1.
Though longer, “regardless of” would also be acceptable in those sentences.
Language-Change Index — “regardless” (without “of”) misused for “despite”: Stage 2.
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Quotation of the Day: “The simplest rule is to treat stops as time-pauses, one beat for a comma, two beats for a semi-colon, three for a full stop. The old-fashioned colon has pretty well been eliminated, and even today the semi-colon seems almost to have had its day. The best writing needs the least punctuation.” S.P.B. Mais, The Writing of English 240 (1935).
