Double copula

[Audiendus]

What do you think about the double copula (e.g. "The thing is, is that...)? Here is what Wikipedia says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_copula

Apparently it originated in the United States around 1971 and had spread to the United Kingdom by 1987.

It is a contagious habit which I find really annoying! It treats "is that" as a compound conjunction when "that" is quite sufficient.

Note that "What it is is that..." is correct: here the two "is"s are necessary.

[bbeeton]

Rather annoying, actually.

According to Wikipedia, "also known as the reduplicative copula". But "reduplicative" actually sounds to me like more than two. A puzzlement.