I admit at the outset that I have a lot of nerve to write an essay complaining about how people are using the English language these days. My teacher in high school used to put comments in the margins of my papers like “primer prose,” “dangling modifiers,” and other such erudite terms of the trade.

I had no idea what he was talking about. In discourse, I still often find myself reverting back to my native tongue, “Bronxese,” when I get the slightest bit agitated. That seems to be occurring more and more often as I age — ungracefully. YaknowwhadImean?

I am, most assuredly, not the poster boy for this crusade, but I have found things to be getting so far out of hand in my reading and conversation that I felt I had no other choice but to comment on the current patois quagmire. (Pretty good, huh?)

The recent comment I was subjected to for the umpteenth time, while discussing an issue with an acquaintance, which was close to the heart for both of us, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It motivated me to lodge yet another spurious complaint on these pages. While my friend was finally reaching his critical point he uttered, “To be honest with you ...” I took a deep breath and, trying to be considerate and polite (also not two of my strongest character traits), I asked him, “Does that mean you haven’t been honest with me up to this point?”

I completely disengaged from our conversation at that juncture, and what was left of my mind became inundated with other bastardizations of our native tongue. I am well aware of the many dialects of the English language, but that is tangential to my focus here. (As an aside, the number of dialects in the U.S/ pales in comparison to those in Switzerland, a country I visit often, that has four official languages and seems to have a different dialect at every bus stop.)

No, I’m talking about sentences and phrases that make no sense at all, at least not to me. Oxymorons and pleonasms abound, along with cliches and other nonsensical transmissions. Why it was just recently, on these very pages, that I read a headline to an article stating, “Extinct whale” spotted off the Maine coast.

OK. Now take a deep breath before reading on.

Since there has been a “deafening silence” on the topic, the “only choice” I seemed to have had was to present an “accurate estimate” of the number of times this form of communication is written or said (“same difference”) while presenting opinions on a variety of topics.

I have taken “my own initiative” to pause from my “regular routine” and spend a few entire “60-minute hours” to present to you a “free gift” of “exact replicas” of nonsense which have often made me, “with rare exceptions,” question what I am reading or hearing. I have been exposed to all of these during my “recent past history.”

“If it’s OK with you,” “if I may,” I would like to include an “unexpected surprise” as an “added bonus.” I will present some additional instances of the issue “irregardless” (what’s wrong with “regardless”?) of whether they are “foreign imports” or not.

“I think I can definitely do that.” I “literally wish to tell you” that I “personally feel” that the phrase, “It is what it is” is “just plain and simple” — annoying.

As a “final closing conclusion,” I gave “110%” effort to composing this column. The end.”

Ya get it?

Jonathan Kahane lives in Westhampton.