Ooh - goody, a chance to be pedantic!
Right, well, there are several things here being discussed at once.
- Modern expressions which grate because they sound unnatural to us and there were perfectly good expressions already in use. e.g. "What's occurring?"
However, some new expressions are for concepts we just didn't have before, so they had to be invented .. To "text" as a verb is a good example. Much neater than saying "To send an SMS/text message" A couple of nifty new things like "Twenty-four-seven" are really useful.
- Very old expressions which bother some of us. "He turned round and said.." I was always led to believe dates back to the plague years. Although I am rather wary of that theory, this expression is certainly not new! Actually, I would have said that "up for grabs" has been around for a few decades, too.
- Expressions that are grammatically wrong.
. "I am good" - In my world, that means that "I am well-behaved"!!! And this misuse of the reflexive pronouns "myself" and "yourself" that has been mentioned. It's all down to people not learning grammar at school. Same thing with confusing "me" and "I". Don't get me started on that!
I am sure we all had expressions that our parents found annoying; the way language moves on continually is just exciting. Some new expressions will stick, others will die out, some need renewing.
"You know", "I mean" and "You know what I mean" were already annoying back in the 60s 70s. In my observation, these days they are mainly used by men who were in their prime around that time.
"Pushing the envelope" and "Thinking outside the box" are beautifully expressive and congratulations to whoever coined them.
A Cappucino is originally from Vienna, a "Kapuziner" - meaning a "hooded monk". This is a cup of coffee, which a huge hood of froth (frothed milk or whipped cream) sitting on the top.
A Latte Macchiato means "maculate milk" - i.e. the opposite of immaculate milk. You froth up the milk and then "stain" it by pouring a shot of espresso on to the foam.
And I have no idea what "blue sky thinking" is, either. But, as an expat, I don't get bombarded with this Newspeak quite so much.