They had a piece on NPR's "talk of the nation" program on Friday last, (still available on www.npr.org) which touched on this matter.

The trouble with attempting, as I generally do, to apply rules or standards to the use of English is that "English" is a rapidly moving target. "Keeping up" apparently requires that one replace one's dictionaries a couple of times each year, and, from where I sit, it looks as though what's really happening is that words which once were considered misspelled, misused, or otherwise "wrong" are now becoming "acceptable," even "standard." When you consider that this includes terms such as "duh," I'm not persuaded this is an improvement, but, in the interest of increasing "understandability," I guess it's necessary.

I guess I'm beginning to have a little more sympathy for the aversion to the influences of foreign language and "popular culture" on their language that the French have been resisting. Perhaps it's more the effect of "future shock" (too much change in too little time, according to Alvin Toffler) than anything else.

RE