To be sure, I’m driven to insane, irrational rage every time I see the words “to be sure” in a newspaper story. I have no explanation, it just pisses me off.

Never mind the question of whether anyone, anywhere actually speaks like this. The answer to that question is, obviously, no. But does anyone, anywhere actually write like this when they’re not either working for The New York Times or desperately trying to sound as though they could one day?

“To be sure, Toyota’s production in North America is also rising as it opens new factories of its own and adds production at the Subaru plant here, where it expects to build 100,000 Camrys a year.”

That, of course, is from a NYT story about Toyota and imports. Or something. I can’t be sure because I stopped reading when I got to the “to be sure” in the fourth paragraph. Maybe this is another one of those things that’s more a reflection of my weirdly obsessive personality than anything actually wrong with the real world.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash my hands 35 times and check that the iron is unplugged 20 times.