Neologisms and quaint structures are constantly being swept onto the shores of Queen's English like so much flotsam and jetsam. This phenomenon, however, ill serves as a mandate for what American thinker Oliver Wendell Holmes called “verbicide”; and what the character of Professor Henry Higgins in that vintage Hollywood musical of yesteryear, My Fair Lady, called “the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue!”

Take, for instance, what I call “the American invasion of the English language”.  It must have begun about the time of the “Boston Tea Party.” Then Americans decided to throw out perfectly good old English words as well and re-invent the language according to their whims and fancies.

Consider this curious exchange: “How are you?”  “I am good.”  This is absurd. Whatever happened to “I am well, thank you”? 

By now, we are all-too-familiar with “This is different than that one” instead of “different from that one”. And one must never say: “Are we thinking about the same thing?”  Instead, one must be careful to say: “Are we on the same page?” This is corporatespeak. 

American spelling, which dominates the computer-driven world, is a “dropout” as well.  Way back when, someone was not very literate he could not spell certain words. Consequently, he must have spelt words phonetically.
Thus we have “defense” instead of “defence”.  However, Americans seem to have left “fence” well enough alone.
Not in my book, I’m afraid. I insist that the word “gay” means blithe, jolly, light -hearted and carefree.  Oliver Wendell Holmes would’ve agreed, I daresay. Could there indeed be anything gay about AIDS, for instance?
Language is integrally and ontologically related to logic, accuracy, truth and similar ideational concerns. It follows, therefore, that progressive erosion of standard forms of linguistic communication and practice would serve as an index of the degradation of all norms and standards in a given society.  Maintain the starch and shape in language, and you sustain an entire society.