With regard to or with regards to? (1/2)
“Give my regards to Jean when you see her” I said to a friend the other day. (If I were considerably younger, I would no doubt have said “Say ‘hi’ to Jean…”)
“Giving your regards to someone” is a standard, if now old-fashioned, phrase that many people have used or will at some stage use.
Signing off an email with “Warmest regards” (my usual one) or some other formulation containing regards is also standard and uncontentious.
But a problem arises when that use of regards is unwittingly transferred to the set phrases “with regard to” and “in regard to.” Obviously, those phrases are used in rather different contexts: “Give my regards to” is mainly oral, while “in regard to” and “with regard to” are typical of writing – and not every kind of writing at that. Typically, they populate (some might say “infest”) formal, probably academic writing. (As it happens, this blog about the issue was sparked by spotting a professor, no less [or should that be “fewer”? 
