If a tree falls in the forest;

Language is devolving. People will tell you it's just the natural progression, through technology, of the english language from what it has been to what it will be in the future. Anyone who tells you this should be hit with the OED (which actually is a lot smaller these days, such is the dumbing down).

An example of what I mean is this; a lot of words that actually mean very different things are being taken to mean exactly the same thing, with all nuance and context removed. The first instance that bugged me this week was the confusion of a friend when I explained that 'noise' and 'sound' are two very different things.
"But how can that be? It's making a noise. It's making a sound. They mean the same thing!"
No, they really don't. Sound is the scientific name for vibrations in the air that can be detected by anything attuned to them, noise is an excess of (or an unpleasant) sound as it pertains to human hearing.
If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a noise?
No. Because there's nobody around to hear it.
Does it make a sound? 
Yes, because sound is merely vibrations in air, and any falling tree is going to produce a hell of a vibration, regardless of if any of us parasites is around to go "Ooh, did you hear that noise?"

Another one that really got to me, when did the word 'Soldiers' become synonymous with 'Heroes'? Now, I'm certainly not belittling the work that SOME soldiers do, but by no stretch of the imagination can all members of the armed forces be considered heroes. Personally, I think in the current climate you have to be mad to enlist in the armed forces but I have friends who have and they say it's the best thing they've ever done. This is fair enough, but ask them if they consider themselves to be heroes and they'll be the first to admit they are just doing a job that they love, but there are just as many horrible people in the armed forces that do it for nothing more than a free pass to hurt people. They are not heroes.
I admit there have been a lot of heroes in the armed forces through the years, veterans of wars where they beat back insurmountable odds against actual evil and invading forces. This is the real point worth considering: by that token if those people are heroes and the people following an evil leader are the villains, then the heroes of today are not our troops but theirs. We had no right to invade their countries, we have even less right to still maintain forces there, it's not to save lives they're still there it's profit. The Iraqi and Afganistani 'insurgents' are trying to oust invaders from their land who entered illegally and unjustly because they had the backing of the biggest global superpower in the world, fronted by who is arguably an evil man. From their point of view, these men are heroes, but you don't see anyone selling shit plastic wristbands for them, do you?