>>As it is... I really don't see why was it introduced at all. It, like, looks like a pointless, like, fad.
>
>ANY expression with the stem "basis" or "situation" in it is usually rubbish.
>
>"We're in a war situation" = "We're at war"
>" - " - No-win situation" = "We can't win"

War is the time when they rape the language the worst. Sloba's TV Bastille invented "ratište" (warplace) just to avoid the word front, and the soldiers troops were "in encirclement", never surrounded. Just like the US military (military what?) never retreats, it "takes evasive action".

>If someone says "A car is basically a box on 4 wheels" then that's not too bad, but I'm sick of hearing people describe an anecdote, or situation, that takes about 10 minutes, and has every other sentence begin with "Basically". Obviously they've gone WAY past the basics when that much explanation is necessary.

Then there are words which have become their own opposites. The word "certain" actually came to mean "some" (same in Serbian, amazingly). And the word "literally" is often used to only emphasize an expression which is used in its non-literal meaning, not to denote that it should be taken literally.

For example, we use "burst into flames" (planuti - another word missing in English) when merchandise rapidly sells. Some time in the early 80s I heard the news on the radio that "200 tons of coal literally burst into flames at the warehouse". I waited for the news about the huge fire, but there were none for an hour. Then the girl only repeated that "200 tons of coal literally burst into flames at the warehouse". Only then I remembered there was some huge delay in the delivery of coal that winter, and that many people just couldn't find any.