This reminds me of a prof of mine, which in turn reminds me of one of my greatest grammatical pet peeves: Using "is" when "are" should be used.

It seems like *everyone* does this. One of my econ professors, for whom English was a second language (albeit one that he had learned when small), did this constantly.

"People is not going to buy all the goods produced when a surplus occurs," he would say. "People is . . ." was a phrase he used a couple of times a class period. I ended up dropping the class halfway through the semester because I simply couldn't stand the thought of going to lecture any more.

While most folks aren't as bad as this, I do notice its occurance is eerily common. Usually it takes the form of the contraction "there's." "There's a couple of colors you can choose from," for instance. My guess is that this happens because there isn't a contraction for "there are." "There're" just does not roll off the tongue.

In conclusion, I have nothing to say about "is is," other than even "the thing is" should be chopped from one's diction, because I have never heard it; therefore, this comment is totally irrelevant.