irrelevant

Something irrelevant has nothing to do with the matter in hand. His age is irrelevant — the question is whether he can do the job. Bringing up last summer's holiday in an argument about the electricity bill is irrelevant, and everyone in the room knows it.

The word takes TO: irrelevant to the discussion, irrelevant to the decision. Irrelevant is not the same as unimportant, since a fact can matter enormously somewhere else and still be irrelevant here. Lawyers use it as a one-word objection and committee chairs use it to cut people off. The noun is irrelevance, and a person or an organisation called irrelevant has lost the power to affect anything: the party has become irrelevant outside the capital. Spelling trap: relevant takes ir-, not un- or in-, and the r doubles.