Words come and go. Grammar and the language does not, or should not, change. Unchecked change in our language will soon result in IM shortcuts being the standard for language. As more and more parents emulate their babies and excuse it as "well, the baby wanted to say it that way," we'll all soon be speaking baby talk.
As the language changes, soon no one will understand the meaning of the words in the Constitution - and you were, I hope, being facetious when you said it was a living document?
"Facetious" is not nearly the most appropriate word, but rather than debate semantics we will agree that the fit is good enough.
Grammar changes over time, just as the words do. Unless you are The French, who seem more than willing to sweep back the tide.
Else how to you account for the change from "a couple of" to "a couple" - as in "I have a couple of examples" vs. "I have a couple examples"? Or from "going over to" into "going over" - as in "I am going over to Levant's house" as opposed to "I am going over Levant's house"? (The first time I heard that construction I actually stopped the speaker and asked how and when they had mastered levetation (as opposed to "levitation", which I have recently read in a supposedly professional journal article discussing the use of humor in public speaking
). Or my current nails-on-chalkboard construction - "in connection to" instead of "in connection with" (the police are reviewing security video in connection to the recent ___ ).
These are not mere vocabulary changes, but structural changes in the language - the grammar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GrammarEvery generation, from Ug and Oog to the present day, has caused their elders to bemoan the decline of language and thus the very fabric of civilization as we know it. Yaska (see Wiki reference above) seems to have been the first to set the grammar in stone. We all know how that turned out, don't we?
stay safe.
