Following are some of the most egregious linguistic fads widespread in America today.
"For my wife and I." Topping my list is the pronoun used in the wrong case. Educated people who would never think of saying "give it to I" will blithely declare "he gave it to my wife and I." A pronoun which is the object of a preposition or the direct object in a sentence must always be in the objective case, that is, "me," "you," "him," "her," "it," "us," "them." This rule applies no matter how many nouns or pronouns are linked together.
"Noun's" used as plural. English nouns and most proper names, with very few exceptions, are made plural by adding "s," not "apostrophe s." Even acronyms such as "IRA" can take the plural by adding simply "s."
"Its" and "it's" confused. A related misuse of the apostrophe lies in confusing the possessive of "it" with the contraction of "it is." To form the possessive, simply add "s" (similar to "his"). To form the contraction, add "apostrophe s" (similar to "didn't").
"The thing is is that." So far, this particular atrocity has been confined to speech and to the present tense. There is no grammatical reason for a double "is" -- it is merely a stutter which has made its way throughout the American linguistic landscape since at least 1987 (I have seen a videotape from that year of Alan Greenspan saying "is is," but do not know if he is the originator of the stutter). If you wonder whether "is is" might be correct because you have heard it so often, just try using it in other tenses. It is a little peculiar to say "was was," but downright absurd when you get to "will be will be."
"We're talking _____ here." This catchphrase has been going on so long that many people do not realize a preposition is needed. "Talk" is not a transitive verb, that is, it cannot take a direct object. The correct phrase is "We're talking about _____ here."
"Being obsolete, I do not think we can use this equipment," as an employer of mine once wrote, is a jarring use of the dangling modifier, namely a modifying phrase too far removed from the word it modifies. Many dangling modifiers are more subtle and elude the casual eye.
"As far as..." This phrase is incomplete. It requires "...goes" or "...is concerned" to finish it. Otherwise, your phrase will not go "as far as" you think.
"Hopefully" means "in a hopeful manner." It does not mean "I hope that" any more than "carefully" means "I care that."
"On a daily basis" takes four words to mean the same as one of its words, namely "daily." It is a piece of verbal inflation akin to those that got their start in the Watergate hearings, such as the much-ridiculed "at that particular point in time." These circumlocutions were used by witnesses to put up a verbal smokescreen or to give them time to think up a plausible lie in response to questions.
Hackneyed, all-purpose abstractions such as "issues," "situations," and "problems" are weasel words which lend your writing a bureaucratic cast, giving the impression that you are trying not to say what you are saying.
If the word "like" were expunged from the English language, would everybody under 30 suddenly be struck dumb?
