Recently I’ve been noticing a lot of use of back instead of ago when referring to a point in the past.
For me it’s always been ‘a few days ago’, not ‘a few days back’. Yet, the curse of ‘a few periods back’ keeps on spreading. It’s been appearing more frequently on the Indian sites I follow. It also keeps popping up on some of the American sites I follow.
Every time I read back in that context, I get a small knock on my head. Then I have to reread that sentence a few times, saying ago instead of back to wipe out the bad taste, before reading on.
Could we all just stop using that ugly ‘back’ please?