The death of English

I just read an interesting Washington Post story on the death of English, which I found via Fark.

I had always thought that we learned English, or at the least the fine points, from books, or instructors teaching from books. Turns out, this is wrong. Common usage (i.e. the "word on the street") precedes the official rulebooks. English is not, as the writer of the WaPo story claims, 1,617 years old and now dead. It dies and is reborn continuously. Like the climate, it is always changing, never static.

That's not to say that the obvious problems mentioned in the story don't bother me. Incorrect usage of English in newspapers is increasing, and I've often wondered if proofreaders are the first to be laid off. If so, why don't the writers do a better job proofreading their own material? After all, the writers look as bad as the papers.

It would be really sad if the current state of incorrect usage and errors becomes the norm. But, don't people beyond their teens and 20s, like me, always lament the passing away of the things we grew up with (music, movie stars, etc.)?

English doesn't really matter any longer, because English, at least in Los Angeles, is being replaced by something called "Ingrish".