If you go back 40-50 years,you'll see that even the most banal movies and T.V. programs had better word usage and much more varied vocabularies,than today's do. And should you go back to movies made in the 1930's,there's even a more yawning abyss.
What depresses me most is to read letters home from the front. Compare letters home from the Civil War to the Vietnam war.
This nation robbed her sons of the classical education they deserved. Rather than turn that around, the devolution has continued apace.