u/Sensitive-Fun702

I assume this train has left the station, but there are so many people now who say "return back" when "return" by itself is quite adequate (given that it means to go back.)

I often hear this on TV - the source of most misuses and distortions of the English language. 50 years from now, I predict, most people will be speaking a kind of pidgin English with hugely reduced vocabularies and the grammar of six-year olds. Fortunately I won't be around.

A spelling error I see quite often in media opinion pieces (often from the US):

“The problem was he didn’t reign in this trend in time.”

I wonder what the “anything goes” people think about this. No need to correct?

Why do I keep hearing "small little?" Does that mean the object is smaller than little? If not, why the two words?

Putting it another way, why do so many adults now speak like children?

Here’s one for the laissez faire linguists who believe that whatever people write or say is totally fine and should never be corrected (because, I am told, correction never works and may also be psychologically harmful):

I keep coming across statements about people “towing the line”, often penned by writers who, one assumes, have had a school education, if not college.

One wonders where the said “line” is being “towed” to – across a river? out to sea? – and for what purpose? And what would this very odd metaphor mean?

May I suggest that it might be of benefit to the "educated" world (and perhaps also to their “educators”!) to revert to the original phrase – “toeing the line” – a good old English expression whose meaning is quite clear?