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Madam, – Congratulations to David Adams for highlighting the abuse of “basically” and other “teeth-grindingly annoying fads that continually plague spoken English” (Opinion, August 13th). We have, at long last, a champion capable of stamping out overused and abused words. Let him begin by tackling the much maligned “personally”, which, like “basically” could be deleted from most sentences without altering their meaning. Despite his early lapse (“Personally, I blame politicians for reducing this fine little word to no more than a verbal tic.”), I believe he’s the right man for the job – going forward. – Yours, etc,