Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A lot of these expressions have gained plenty of traction in modern society, which means that many people may be using these expressions out of familiarity and the fact that they're commonly used rather than to sound simply "cool." Calling prevalent colloquialisms "lame" out of hand seems, regardless of your intent, culturally or linguistically judgmental, since the English language is a pretty arbitrary thing anyway.

If, however, you want to know something about these expressions, Mr. Barrett has a website devoted to slang and neologisms. Maybe there's some information there?

Esoterotitron said:

These are the least of our worries as English speakers.
I met a guy in a club the other day.
We were friends of friends.
He spoke in almost entire colloquialisms.
We essentially failed to communicate simply because he could not (or would not) revert to any form of straight English.

At first, It was hilarious….then frightening.

Any examples?