As HL Mencken is purported to have said, "no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

But I think the mainstreaming of idiocy of this abysmal depth has been acheived in no small part thanks to the efforts of enablers like John McWhorter, the pop-linguist / occasional political commentator who, in addition to staking his claim as official filler of whatever void will be left when Noam Chomsky inevitably casts off his mortal coil, has proven himself to be yet another in a long line of pop evolutionists (like Sagan, Hawking, Dennett, hαɾɾιs and de Grasse-Tyson before him) whose job it is to chisel away at whatever remains of the traditional weltanchauung in the average slob, replace it with the evolutionary pablum that is the stock and trade of the Enemies of the Faith, Reason and Order, and make said average slob feel like a right smarty-pants with a new name to drop to impress the Joneses the next time they pop in for a barbecue.

Listen to him defend and legitimize the devastation being done to language by "texting" (not to mention the giddy reception it gets) and weep for your grandchildren:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/embed/yoF2vdLxsVQ[/youtube]