This is AAVE.
Nothing compares 2 U.
Yah, that is where it originated, like much youth culture slang that gets appropriated.
You’ve got a point there. Since I am guilty of lazy pronunciation too, it should not bug me, but it does !!
I see it most often when teens or young adults are texting something such as, “I wanna go to the store.” To me, it makes them sound like petulant children.
I’m actually one of the laziest people on earth.
And to address Acsenray’s concerns w/ my post, I said that I don’t like it, not that it’s wrong (not the same thing BTW)
I’m questioning the application of the term “lazy.” It’s not a valid linguistic concept.
Well, in utterance, most people combine the structure of the mouth noises with a sort of melodic/rhythmic consistency that helps the listener interpret muffled, garbled or indistinct words that are probable and would fit the song.
When people insist on retaining “The” in a proper name in violation of English syntax:
“ … the streamer’s new The Sandman adaptation …”
“ … a The Who record …”
“ … article by The Washington Post reporter Jane Doe …”
Deleted those Thes! I’ve only noticed this commonly on the Internet age. Before that, a copy editor would have struck it out.
Similar: it’s Mayo Clinic, not The Mayo Clinic. Mayo has been working for decades on branding that drops the The. They haven’t been totally successful.
I don’t give two craps about branding. The definite article should be used when it naturally goes into the context and omitted when it doesn’t.
All these are examples of natural use or natural omission of the definite article and they have nothing to do with branding.l:
“I visited the Mayo Clinic.”
“I saw the Eagles when they played last year.”
“I drove through the Ohio State University campus.”
But
“My mom was a Mayo Clinic patient.”
“I saw Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh at the grocery.”
“I went to Ohio State University.”
Did you get Joe’s autograph? 
AIUI, there are some who would object to omitting the definite article, presumably to make sure you know they did not go to one of them pretender not-really-The-Ohio-State universities.
“The important thing is…”
There can be more than one important thing! The fact that no one was killed may be the most important thing, but let’s not ignore the fact that the driver was going the wrong way down the highway with three times the legal alcohol in his blood.
First, there aren’t any others with that name. L Second, the only people who care are the marketing people in O.S.U. administration. There is no use of “the” in common speech.
“If you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it.” There is no way that phrase is accurate in the real world. There are plenty of people who can afford some luxury but not every luxury. Even if the thing you are describing is so useless that no one without money to burn could afford it, there is still a dollar amount at which you can afford it. Even if it only costs, say, $100,000 and is totally useless, there is some point at which, say, it is affordable to someone with $100,000,000 but not $99,999,999. And most luxuries are not totally useless, so, if you really like cars, you might want a Lamborghini if you are a multimillionaire but could not afford it if you were just a plebian near-2-millionaire. At some point you’d cross that line. There is no way to know when you have crossed that line without asking how much it costs!
And it can’t be that only upperclass people who were raised in the environment would automatically know how much the thing costs without having to ask, because the nouveau riche have to learn how much stuff costs, and there are plenty of examples of inherited wealthy losing their money.
And even in the case of totally useless status symbols, you still need to know how much it is. Take artwork. It can’t be worth much more than the $200,000 or so it would take for a good forger to produce a perfect copy of an out of copyright work, but some artwork goes for more than $100,000,000. And not everyone is one of the richest people in the world. If a mere multi-billionaire was talking to their $50 billion net worth friend and telling them that they were considering buying a Renoir, but didn’t know how much they cost, would the richer friend say “if you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it?” $100 million would be 5% of their net worth, of course they would want to know if it costs $200 million or $100 million!
I only hear it when they introduce NFL players, running 3-second clips of their heads. And after quick soundbites like “I’m Jimmy Ryan, Notre Dame.” we all sit through “Ah’m Joseph Z. Shlobotnik Junior, an’ I went to… THE… Ohio State University.”
One time I finished his sentence: “An’ ah do anything my coach tells me to, and same for the college that I’ve been out of for six years.”
.
I grew up around multi-millionaires. My parents used to laugh at one of them who’d haggle at a farmer’s market.
Me: “But he only saved a dollar!”
Mom: “How do you think he got so many of them?”
“The thing of it is”. Could you be a bit more specific? There are many different things, and they are quite diverse.
Not my favorite phrase either, but just mentally insert “key” before “thing” and you understand their point perfectly. Of course it helps even more if the “it” is clear from context.
Perfectly cromulent.
I peddled to work?