Language drift

It's surely a sign of age to be increasingly irritable about changes in grammar and usage. Does anyone else notice that published pieces increasingly find it difficult to use phrases like "much less" and "no less" and "if worse comes to worst" and "sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander" properly? It's as if the authors had all suffered strokes. "Much less" quite often has the two elements reversed, so instead of "I was so tired I could barely walk, much less (or let alone) run" it comes out "scarcely run, much less walk," which makes no sense. "No less" should mean "fully as great as," as in "my presentation received rave reviews from the national expert on my topic, no less." It has nothing to do with the "much less" idiom, but gets wound in somehow. The worse/worst expression appears in reverse or in doubles of worse/worse or worst/worst. The "sauce" idiom, especially in speech, tends to sound like "sauce for the . . . [pause]" followed by lame muttering of something indecipherable.

I realize this is part of the natural progression of language. An idioms that is too hard to recall either falls out of use or is replaced with something that sounds familiar, even if it no longer has the sense of the original. Another take, however, is that there's no such thing as an editor any more, not even in formal book publishing, let alone online sites. (See, it's not that difficult.)

Don't get me started on rein/reign, regime/regimen, principal/principle, or affect/effect. These young whippersnappers. If the shoe fits, you must acquit.