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This is a phrase I've heard many people use, and it sounds wrong to me; e.g.:
The thing about that is, is that she might take it the wrong way.
It seems to treat "The thing [...] is"—the entire phrase—as the subject of the sentence. Of course, even if that were allowed, the comma placement would still be questionable.
I'm curious to know:
In the linguistics literature, they're referred to as either "double is" constructions or "thing is constructions". Various papers have been published on the subject which you should find if you Google these terms.
In one possible analysis, what is happening is that there is effectively an element such as "what" which is implied:
"(What) the thing is, is that I'm going to be late"
"(What) my feeling was, is/was that..."
Note that although they're referred to as "double is" or "thing is" constructions, the construction doesn't necessarily involve either a double "is" (notice "...was, is..." is possible) or "thing" (notice the example with "My feeling").
I'm not aware of a claim that the phenomenon is restricted to a particular dialect.
This is incorrect grammar. However, it looks like something which was spoken out loud: people can not delete or edit their previous utterances, so people often construct sentences verbally which are not strictly grammatical.
It not only sounds wrong, it is wrong. And the introductory words are not a phrase, but a clause that already contains both subject and verb and so does not require a secondary, redundant verb.
"Double is" is not a sufficient name, since the usage may not include any form of the verb "is", such as "The problem being, is that ..."
It is correctly called a "double copula" (a copula being the linguistic term for a word used to link the subject of a sentence to a predicate).
According to the third edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage (as revised by Robert Burchfield), the double copula originated around 1971 in the United States and had spread to the United Kingdom by 1987.
I came to this page after finding Andy Murray being quoted on the Guardian as saying, "What being a good team member is is performing the best in your sport." I think this is an interesting question; when people start a clause with a wh- word, it can be difficult to avoid the double copula, because another verb needs to be found quickly (i.e. What being a good team member means).
