What makes this sad is that we're doing it to ourselves.

I don't know that I would characterize it as "sad" exactly, but it does seem like it's a late-coming counterpart to what has been happening in various professional fields. I mean, how many times have you seen a sitcom where a character is speaking to a doctor and says "in English please?" The English spoken between politicians or between politicians and the public, is another good example of what I'm referring to. Of course, those developments in language occurred to more easily communicate complex or lengthy ideas between people who have similar bases in knowledge, but the fact is, that they've developed enough that an outsider may have little understanding of what's happening.

One might argue that this is a feature of many languages and to an extent, that's true. But, English is a bit different due to its history as a language that has often gone through permutations among professional circles as well as regional circles and class circles, on such an international scale (not to mention such a great number of non-native speakers, including immigrants). When coupled with the facility that one is able to create new words (which comes from the Germanic influences most predominantly) and the fact that there are so many homophones and homonyms, we have a bewilderingly complex language that of course will continue to adapt in strange ways when presented with opportunities to do so.