Really?! I must be getting old, then. Hm. Our minister begins Sunday services with a prayer in which the the word "prevent" has its old definition of "to go before," not "to block" -- and I understand that.
But a substantial number of the linguistic, um, changes in American English I see today look a lot more like ignorance (read: poor education) than anything else. "Cigarets" or "sigret's," they tell me sumbodi dint lern ta spel "cigarettes."
I've never seen cigaret. I have always seen cigarettes.