Massive reduction in conversational American English

The English are a lazy lot, and will not speak a word as it should be spoken when they can slide through it. Why be bothered to say extraordinary when you can get away with strawdiny? ... Many of the Oxford Cockneys are weaklings too languid or emasculated to speak their noble language with any vigor, but the majority are following a foolish fashion which had better be abandoned. Its ugliness alone should make it unpopular, but it has the additional effect of causing confusion. [Irish playwright St. John Ervine, quoted by H.L. Mencken (1948, p. 39)]