YtownPolyglot wrote:The "correct" uses of language often preserve distinctions that are lost on some speakers. If enough people are perfectly happy without those distinctions, the language evolves in a direction of simplicity rather than precision.
I would question the premise that language is destined to become simpler over time, and that language evolution can only remove distinctions. I doubt this is what you were implying, but many people do seem to think that if we allow language to change it will eventually devolve into nothing more than a series of incoherent grunts.
As a counterexample, Latin had just two second-person subject pronouns (one singular, one plural), but modern European Spanish has five, gaining a formal/informal distinction in both singular and plural as well as a masculine/feminine distinction in the informal plural.
Many dialects of spoken Arabic have developed a progressive aspect for verbs which is largely absent in MSA. English has done the same over the past millennium or so.
Another rather curious example: in formal Hebrew, the exist multiple translations for the verb "to wear" depending on the item of clothing, so a shirt, hat, necklace, socks, shoes, and glasses would each get a different verb. In popular speech this distinction has been lost for many (perhaps most) speakers.
However, and this is where it gets interesting, all these different verbs are the same whether you're describing the act of putting on said item of clothing or describing the state of wearing it. On the other hand, whilst popular speech has lost the distinction in verbs for different types of clothing, it has gained a new distinction between "putting on" and "having on" said clothing. This innovation has not entered the standard language yet, and is largely viewed as "incorrect" or "uneducated" (despite not being limited to any particular social class).
So clearly, although some distinctions may be lost, it's not that unusual for others to be created.