Even on Kids' TV we now hear how kids really speak. It has finally dawned on TV chiefs that Enid Blyton is dead. It's not only TV and film that have dragged themselves into the nineties. In the past month new editions of the New Oxford, Chambers and Collins dictionaries have been published. The shelf life of new words is often remarkably short.
Language is fluid.
Anyone can make up a word. Words also disappear. Under the influence of the National Lottery, most punters would rather place their bet with a machine than a human being. Not everyone, however, is happy at the way language is evolving. Take estuary English, which seems to cause increasing offence as it overwhelms the indigenous accents of London and south-east England.