For all who rent tan fur chaises

[Mark Stellmack]

Here's another one that I hear from students often enough for it to be

irksome:

"For all intensive purposes..."

Huh?  What is an "intensive purpose"?  Is that like a "super-purpose", or a purpose that you really get into?

Of course, the correct expression is "For all intents and purposes...", meaning something like "For all practical circumstances in which it might be an issue...", but it has been distorted into something that just sounds kind of similar.  But there are plenty of expressions that also sound similar and are equally nonsensical, so why not try one of these?:

"For all insensitive porpoises..."
"For all indents and parentheses..."
"For all immense sand purchases..."
"For olive tents and furniture..."
"For all incense and myrrh masses..."

I'm not sure that it even needs to make sense to the students.  "For all the dense and surly-ish," as long as they're all saying it, they seem to be fine with it.