Last week I learned of this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Dreyers-English- ... ag=mh0b-20
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
It sufficiently motivated me to exceed my soft limit on how much to pay for a book (about $8.00, preferably less)...by telling myself that it'd be a reference book that I'd study. Books like that are automatically exempted from the limit.
I did buy it and went through it all, sending excerpts to a friend who has written about seven or more books.
He has another one coming out. I offered to be one of his editors and he accepted.
Therefore, reading the book may put on the path of embarking upon the path of yet another avocation: book editing. I'd not be one of those big picture editors. My primary focus would be on detail; correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, consistency - something said one place agrees with the same thing 30 pages later.
I have no desire to get paid for any of that work. Getting paid $$$$ brings with it pressures and expectations, reducing the enjoyment from the activity. Same reason why I've refused to take $$$$ for taking pictures.
Getting back to what you had above.....my fruitless campaign has been to rid of the world of the misuse of the phrases: "a little" and, even worse, "a little bit".
Start paying attention to how many times you hear people using those phrase. It is almost always verbal. Rarely written.
Think about what they really mean. "A little" means "not significant". "A little bit" means "barely perceptible".
Instead, I almost always hear them being using to describe what is clearly significant or clearly perceptible or both.
The only motivation I can ascribe to people who consistently misuse these two phrases is some kind of fear of truly describing the reality with accurate words instead of using these phrase which minimize the reality.