10. “In today’s modern society…” (this is the first line in 25% of the essays I read)
9. The designation “Old English” used to describe expressions as diverse as “codpiece” and “groovy.”
8. “In my humble opinion, I believe that…”
7. “Different,” as in, “This story was really different.”
6. “In the following paragraphs, I will demonstrate that this thesis is correct.”
5. “According to Microsoft Word Dictionary, ‘X’ means…”
4. Any form of MSNspeak (lol, IMHO [see above], u, etc.)
3. “The reason why is because…”
2. Textual references to “the Madonna” interpreted as references to “Madonna.”
1. “Back in the day…” (means anything from “yesterday” to “in the Pleistocene era”)
Classroom as Microcosm 
My personal favourite was, “Nowadays,…”
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Great list – the new cliches. How about “the complete opposite” to mean merely “different”?
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I love those, too. We get “Contrarily to…” or “the complete contrary” a lot, Dale, mostly because of the French influence.
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