It bugs me when people say “the thing is is that” (if you listen for it, you’ll start hearing it… or maybe that’s something that people only do in my area.) (“What the thing is is that…” is fine. But “the thing is is that…” bugs me.)
Also, “just because <blank> doesn’t mean <blank>.” That sentence structure invites one to take “just because <blank>” as a noun phrase which my brain really doesn’t want to do. Just doesn’t seem right. But that sentence structure is very common.
And I’m not saying there’s anything objectively wrong with either of these. Language is weird and complex and beautiful. It’s just fascinating that some commonly-used linguistic constructions just hit some people wrong sometimes.
Edit: I thought of another one. “As best as I can.” “The best I can” is fine, “as well as I can” is good, and “as best I can” is even fine. But “as best as” hurts.
That is always confusing to me. If I am on a bus stop: “This bus” doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t exist yet. Next bus, is the next occurance of event “Bus”.
If it’s Wednesday, the “this Friday” doesn’t really make sense. There doesn’t exist a Friday in Wednesday, that you call this. Next Friday however is quite clear - it’s next occurrence of event “Friday” on the timeline, so it’s the one in two days.
Ok but if you’re at a bus stop, and the bus is just coming round the corner into sight, you can say “this bus” even though it’s not parked up yet.
Same thing with this Friday. If it’s close enough to be in mind, you can use this.