...or linguistics.
My family muses a lot, and it seems a good bit of the musing has to do with language.
For example, hubby noted that many younger people are saying "s" as an "sh" sound when it begins a word. For example, "shtreet" for "street." What's up with that? Are the younger generations developing lisps?
Another interesting oddity is that many people say "on accident" these days. When we were growing up, hubby and I both learned it's "by accident" and "on purpose." And it's not like it's a regional thing for us since I grew up on the West Coast of Canada and he grew up on the East Coast of the U.S. I did a search on Google and found a couple of interesting thread on this:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/215/is-it-correct-to-say-on-accident-instead-of-by-accident
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=402023
I know that any living language is an evolving thing, so what grates on our ears today will be the norm of tomorrow...hopefully not immediately tomorrow. Maybe in another 3 generations.
But the language usage that must be stopped - nay, slain with a sharp red pen! - are cliches and trite phrases that filled the English language like so many empty high fructose corn syrup calories. A couple of the more irksome ones are:
"At the end of the day..." - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=at%20the%20end%20of%20the%20day
"Needless to say..." - then why say it?
"It is what it is" - and what exactly is "it?"
What is a cliched phrase you feel should eradicated?
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams
