Wow -- had no idea how many of us there were that pay attention to the English language! My heart is encouraged. Mel brought up a good point (and David illustrated that I probably missed a hilarious 'Night Court') about people that say "for all intensive purposes". Those people are obviously not even thinking about the words they are saying -- but have just developed a bad habit.
It made me think of another phrase that I have no idea what is correct, so I have quit using it altogether. I grew up saying, "all of a sudden." I hear people saying, "all the sudden." Thinking about the word 'sudden' as an adjective, I'm not sure either one is correct and we should use the word "suddenly" instead. But I continue to ponder and wonder.
And for This One's for the Girls -- WalMartS drives me NUTS. However, so many people say it that I use it now in my best hillbilly voice as in, "We're goin' inta town to visit the Wal-Marts." And my precious 94 year old grandmother calls it "the Wal-Marts." I figure she's entitled, so I try to cut her a little slack!
And, in doing research because I got called on the carpet, although a definition of "lingual" makes it a perfectly fine word for that point, a more appropriate term for me would be a "linguistic snob".
