Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
I rarely hear “ain’t” in daily conversation, and when I do the user is usually trying to sound mock-redneck or just immature. I can’t ever recall hearing “bling” either. I see no reason to permit such monsters into the dictinary. Teaching people to accept such words as valid leads to many bad consequences. It widens the gap between the educated and uneducated, makes it harder for current students to read older books, and reduces overall language utility. Suppose you miss the beginning pronoun in a sentence and hear only “… am not opposed to prescriptive English.” Then you know the speaker is speaking about himself or herself. On the other hand, suppose you hear “… ain’t opposed to prescriptive English.” Then you have no clue who the subject of the sentence was supposed to be. It’s quite possible that the speaker doesn’t know who the subject is supposed to be.
If we allow such decay of the language to continue, we will soon be told that it’s okay to call a bison a buffalo, which will deprive us of this famous grammatically correct sentence: “Buffalo bison Buffalo bison buffalo buffalo Buffalo bison.”
Some will say that drift in the language can’t be avoided. I respond that we could at least slow it down if experts such as those at the OED would hold the line on “ain’t” and other such cases.
Because you can’t prove or disprove a negative. Sheesh.
So what? Polyvinyl alcohol is considered a polymer, even though no “mer” of “vinyl alcohol” exists as a stable compound.
“John where James had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.”
Usage varies with location. I hear (and use) it all the time.
It’s not teaching them, but acknowledging them.
Really? Last time I looked, I thought I counted as ‘educated’
See my earlier link for Dickens’ use of “ain’t”. And no kids struggle with Shakespeare or Chaucer?
What on earth does this mean?
Ridiculous example. How about if I hear “…haven’t heard “ain’t” used in some time” - is the subject the first or second person?
You’ve not demonstrated that it’s decay, only change.
How do you decide where to draw this line?
?
Cromulent? What the hell does cromulent mean, Miss Hoover?
What in the world is this supposed to prove? Just because in your own little corner of the world you don’t hear it in daily conversation…so what?
It’s funny to me that you’re harping about the “decay” of language when it is in fact a word being added to common usage.
“…are not opposed to perscriptive English.”
OH NO! We lost the beginning pronoun! I have no idea who the subject of the sentence is!
Stupid made up word from the Simsons. :rolleyes:
Similar to several that Lord Blackadder made up to confound Samuel Johnson.
Prove a negative? No. Disprove a negative? Piece of cake.
Tell me you didn’t really fall for control-z challenge and try to make me believe you. 
Widen’s the gap? That just ain’t so. As more people accept the word, it narrows the communication gap. ‘Cause, you see, our language needs it some bling. Know what I’m sayin’?
The truth is, fighitng language change is a fool’s errand. Language is whatever people use in everyday speech, and every language changes.
diggleblop began the thread by asserting that everybody uses “ain’t”, even people who oppose the use of “ain’t”. Thus, one person who doesn’t use “ain’t” proves diggleblop incorrect; an entire corner of the world that refuses to use it proves the point more thoroughly. Moreover, my life is not confined to one corner of the world. I’ve visited many corners. In the past few years, I’ve lived on two continents and in eight states. Furthermore, I watch TV, read books and other media, and use the internet, so I have wide exposure to English-language users from around the globe. And nowhere do I see “ain’t” making the promised conquest of the language. Some folks seemed to believe that the rise of “ain’t” was unstoppable, and that it would continue until we had defendants pleading “ain’t guilty” in court and medical journals finding that new drugs “ain’t effective” against cancer. It didn’t happen. I think that “ain’t” peaked in the 80’s and is now on its way out.
decay (verb) To decline in excellence, health, prosperity, etc.
If adding words gives us a lesser language, then that means the language is decaying.
So you’re going to take a single clearly-exaggerated aspect of the OP and focus on it?
You’ve never caught an episode of Eastenders, I presume. Nor seen the Big Brother in Britain.
I’ve been in court as a witness, when transcripts of the defendent’s police interviews which were read out, including “ain’t” on a frequent basis.
They wouldn’t say that a drug “isn’t effective”, either.
Circuitous argument. You need to prove that a ‘lesser’ language results (and you need to define what you mean by ‘lesser’ to start with).
Not to be pedantic, but those are improper usages. Were the plea “I am not guilty” then “I ain’t guilty” would be correct, though less formal than the legal profession prefers. “Ain’t effective” is incorrect both because the correct contraction would be “aren’t” and because contractions aren’t appropriate in medical journals.
Then you join the thousands of tinpot grammarians and fourth-grade teachers who waited in vain the past century for that to happen.
Who, besides you, believes that “adding words gives us a lesser language?” Most, if not all, linguists see it as a sign that a language is vibrant and alive. 
Why ain’t “isn’t” better?
Ain’t is a word, all right, but it is horrendous grammar.
You seem to have a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of a dictionary. Dictionaries do not exist to teach people proper English. That’s what style guides are for. Dictionaries are a reference work on how English is being spoken. Expecting dictionaries to conform to any particular preconception of what is and is not “proper” English would invalidate their usefulness. As appalled as you are by the existence of the word “bling,” it is a word that is in common currency. Imagine this scenario, if dictionaries functioned the way you want them to: you’re reading an article in a magazine that mentions the word “bling.” You’ve never seen the word before, and you can’t figure out the meaning from context. You can’t look it up in the dictionary, because someone somewhere has decided that “bling” is a “monster” word and shouldn’t be legitimized by inclusion in dictionaries. What do you do? How do you find out what this unfamiliar word means?
As for your “bad consequences”:
Actually, it does precisely the opposite. People will constantly be inventing new words, and using old words in innovative ways. You can attempt to fight this with rigid prescriptivism, but this will only be effective in an academic setting. While students are being indoctrinated in what is and is not proper English, those outside of the academic sphere will continue to invent new language. Thus, communication between the two classes will become harder and harder. Far better to embrace language change, adopt and disseminate new usages, and thereby eliminate dialect as a symbol of class difference.
Granted, this is a difficulty, but it’s hardly insurmountable. And I don’t think that ease of access to older texts is a worthy enough goal to warrant circumscribing the creation of new texts, which would be a necessary consequence of slavish adherence to prescriptive grammar.
This is precisely backwards. Language is a tool, and humans are constantly working on ways to improve it to better suit their needs. Changes the result in reduced utility are almost never adopted by the mainstream, simply because it won’t be as useful in the daily life of the average person. If “ain’t” presented a genuine barrier to communication, few people would use it, because of the inherent frustration of simply not being understood by the person you’re speaking to.
This is a very silly objection, as has been pointed out by many posters. But not only does it already apply to any number of “proper” English constructions, it’s a meaningless objection on its face. What if you only hear “…to presciptive English.” Then not only do you not know who is speaking, you don’t even know if they approve of it or not! Any phrase in any language can be misunderstood if you only hear a portion of the phrase. It’s an inherent limitation of spoken language.
Am I being whooshed, or did you not see the link to this sentence earlier in the thread, using only the word “buffalo?”
I’ll not only say that it can’t be avoided, but that it should be embraced. Change is life. Stagnation is death. The quickest way to consign the English language to the dustbin of history is to try to prevent it from evolving. There’s a reason the English language supplanted French as the international lingua franca, and it’s not just because of the ascendency of the British empire and American nation. English is an infinitly flexible, adaptable language, that can be easily modified to incorporate new ideas and vocabulary. To consciously avoid using the language’s greatest strength would be a tragedy.
So, for language issues we’ll call you BobConservative. 
There’s nothing horrendous about it. It’s just a word, and it has a precise meaning.
Informally most people can say “you guys” without seeming hickish. Even people who claim to disapprove of it are caught saying it without realizing.
I guess you still scorn “hyperbole” as one of those abominable neologisms?
I don’t think anyone has said it was going to “conquer” the English language. “Ain’t” is a long established colloquialism, appropriate in relaxed, informal contexts. No one has claimed that it will replace formal contractions, or that it is appropriate in formal contexts, although the latter is changing somewhat as society in general moves away from formalism in general. For example, many workplaces have much more relaxed dress codes than was common fifty years ago, and as informality becomes an acceptable corporate fashion, other informalities become more acceptable.
That may very well happen eventually, but probably not in our lifetimes, and predicting language trends over that long a period is pretty much impossible. As for it “peaking,” I very much doubt it. As noted earlier, this particular bit of slang has a pedigree of at least two centuries, and is still in common currency. In the US, it’s largely identified with the Southern region of the nation, which has attached several negative connotations to the word which it is still in the process of shedding. As the US South becomes a more prominent force in shaping American society, it’s associated regionalisms will be increasingly mainstream. Far from peaking in the '80s, the term is still in its ascendency.
Adding words to a language can only make the language stronger. The health of a language can be measured in the amount of flexibility and precision it is capable of communicating, and every new word that is added to the lexicon gives speakers another tool to achieve those ends. Claiming that adding a word to a language weakens the language is like claiming that adding another screwdriver to a toolbox weakens the toolbox.
Arguing over “ain’t” is pretty feeble since it has such a long and well establish history in common parlance.
If your intention, really, is to dispute the rapidity with which the OED adds words from the common vernacular to the “official” dictionary, you’re far better off using the recently added “bootylicious” as your example.
It’s hard for me, even as a descriptive linguist, not to find that one a little silly since I certainly don’t hear that in my little corner of the world (at least not with any seriousness), but the point that Miller makes about the purpose of dictionaries easily trumps it.
I mean, it’s not a random combination of letters and sounds. I’ve heard this word. How do I know what it means?
If you have a cheap, plastic toolbox it might. Which makes me wonder, ITR champion, I know you are not a cheap, plastic toolbox but are you a native English speaker? I ask because if you are not perhaps it could explain why you are more prescriptive than many of us. After all, English is diabolical enough when everybody follows the rules and when they don’t I suppose it can look absolutely chaotic.