The Mangling of the English Language.
I am sure many of you will have noticed how people in the public limelight are apparently on a mission to mangle, modify or even destroy the English language. I for one am very conscious of the fact the English is possibly unique in the way it is constantly developing and adapting. One thing that probably helped kill Latin was its total failure to even recognise words and phrases from other languages, never mind absorb them. The French language will probably go the same way as long as the French government is so determined to keep that language "pure".
The English language is capable of absorbing words from other cultures to suit circumstances and to reflect events. Probably, it is possible to trace the history of the British people by studying the changes in the language over the centuries. The English we now speak is not greatly different from that spoken by our ancestors a thousand years ago. It made no difference to the language in general when the Normans popped in for a spot of ruling and insisted on French being spoken. That may have worked at court but the vast majority of the population (the good old yeomen and peasants) stuck to English, thank you very much. Some French words sneaked in (notice that? "Sneaked", not "Snuck". Pay attention!) and we ended up with words such as 'garage' and 'envelope' etc. and there are the Indian and other Asian words such as 'bungalow' and 'char' etc. All that is good stuff and has served only to enrich our language. We probably have more ways of saying the same thing than any other language. We can use the language skilfully to deliberately say as little or as much about a subject as we would like, just by altering the choice of words.
As I said, all good stuff, so what is my grumble about?
I shall list a few:
Football players and managers; they now constantly refer, in interviews, to their club as the "football club" and they will refer to a good "football game". Do me a favour, drop the 'football'. We know it is bloody football, that is why we are watching you talk nonsense on Match of the Day, not Gardener's Question Time!
Once upon a time, it was enough for the players or managers to say "This is a great club". They didn't need to constantly say "football club" as they knew we are not so stupid as to make the mistake of thinking they were talking about the local social club or the working man's club down the road.

TV news readers; they pay so much attention to their pronunciation that they overdo it. Hence, we now hear about Islamic population going to Saudi Arabia for the "Harzzhh". Sod off! It is pronounced "Haj" with the middle letter being what is known as a short 'A' and the third letter sounding like the initial letter of the name 'John'. Haj!
The same people have, on occasion, been heard to talk about "Parkistarn" and to refer to that 4 yearly feast of athletics as the "Erlimpics".
For God's sake! For a £2Million a year salary, you should be able to do a lot better than that!

They also share a speech impediment with many of our current crop of politicians; they can not pronounce many old English words in a manner which is remotely recognisable to the majority of the population. Some examples include 'magistrate'. Mr. Blair is the chief culprit here and he, along with news readers, insists on pronouncing this as 'magistrut'.
I have noticed recently a number of occasions where the word 'decade' has been mispronounced with the emphasis being placed on the last syllable. When you do that, you change the word from one meaning a span of ten years to one that means rotten, in other words, the past tense of the verb 'decay'.

Anyone on the radio or telly; "on the back of" is a stupid, vacuous expression which means sod all to the average person who spends 10 milliseconds thinking of a suitable word to describe an event. Nothing comes "on the back of" other than chaps riding elephants. If one of those turned up at your front door, you would rightly be able to say "he came on the back of an elephant".
A rise in the bank rate does NOT come on the back of whatever. Maybe it follows something else or perhaps it is either subsequent or even consequential to something else but never, ever on the "back of". Drop it!