Handwriting on the wall...

One term that's commonly used in our language is "Handwriting on the wall", yet correctly "Writing on the wall" mostly translated to "knowing about the outcome", or "the decision is made regardless of the fact", related to doom and gloom. Being a curious guy, I wanted to see where this phrase came from. It actually dates back to the book of Daniel, way back when around 170 BC:

King Belshazzar of Babylon during one of his wild drinking parties, takes sacred golden and silver vessels, which had been removed from Solomon's Temple and while using these holy items, the King praises "the gods of gold and silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone."

Immediately, the disembodied fingers of a human hand appear and write on the wall of the royal palace the words "Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin," loosely translated as Measured, Measured, Weighed and Divided (possibly by by Persians.)

Now regardless of your belief in this stuff, I would say if a couple of fingers appeared in the middle of my living room and started writing on the wall, I would... honestly I don't know what I would do.

Blah blah blah

This is one of the most invasive terms I've encountered.

It is the ultimate expression of malaise. The implication is that there is more to the story being told. You, the listener, are being spared those meaningless details. Then again, if the details are meaningless, why bring them up at all?

"Blah blah blah" is nothing more than a placeholder disguised as a transition from one body of facts to another. If it means something, say what it means. If it means nothing, then say nothing.

At The End Of The Day

I guess the things happening at the end of this phrase, can only, vampirishly, inevitably, emerge after everything else has happened during a very long day. The activities 'during the day' leading up to this outcome are usually not delineated yadda-yadda-yadda-like.  'At The End Of The Week' must be something really inevitable.

My Bad

This is another example of a part of speech, an adjective, turning into a noun, and then being possessed...for no good reason...to mean 'my fault' or 'my mistake'.
I do seem to remember some ethnic phrase "my bad self"?

Main Street vs. Wall Street

This got started with the financial melt-down Bush gifted us with, and the ham-handed attempts to solve it through bailouts and relief programs.  Most pundits note that stock brokers and investment banks did better during the melt-down, financially, than they did before it, while the rest of us lost our homes, jobs, insurance, and life savings.

The phrase is "clever" because of the repeat of the word "street", but it got so very tired so very quickly.

What is meant is "The financial sector vs. the middle class".  Let's say what we mean.

On The Ground

This term has become terribly overused, likely because of the endless hedging the US Government engages in when talking about an exit strategy for Iraq, Afghanistan, and now, Libya.  "It will depend on conditions on the ground".  "This decision will be made by those on the ground."

As opposed to those floating in mid air?

And, especially in Libya, I suspect the conditions in the air might have a lot to do with when we stop, you know, bombing their anti-aircraft installations.

By "on the ground" they mean "in theater" or "in the situation."  They should say so.