Sir, - Recently, a shop assistant's superhackneyed "no problem" - to my request for a well-known ever-available cleansing solution - made me wonder if I somehow gave the impression that I was concerned about an on-the-spot resolution of some doubtful or difficult matter.
My vexation was compounded by the additional, clichéd "There you go" and "Thanks a million" before I left the premises.
While the ad nauseam use of that "nothing to it" idiom provoked me into penning this protest, I am inclined to prognosticate that, in my proaction, my effort will be of little avail and that the widespread proclivity to its overuse will remain undiminished.
I am sorely tempted, on asking for the above solution again, to counter the assistant's "no problem" by emphasising that, although the solution on the shelf might very well be so, I myself had quite a provoking problem with "no problem" which I found rather hard to shelve.
However, it seems to me that the proliferation of such rusty clichés (of course, many are veritable lingual lubricants), a surfeit of prolix alliterations (as in this letter), done and undone puns, etc., in no way signals the demise of language as we know it, as long as the latter glitters with a goodly counter-balancing quota of verbal gems. - Yours, etc.,
Father PAT DEIGHAN,
Laytown,
Co Meath.