Child, children: all but replaced by kid and kids. Move to a shorter, more gutteral word. Generations of parents have faught a losing battle to keep the words child and children as kids are baby sheep.
But not all changes are shorter, consider:
Check which is all but replaced by double check. In present usage double check means just check once. When someone today says "I'll double check that." they don't mean they will check it twice, just once. Apparently to check is not a strong enough word so it is replaced by double check. this follows our advertising rich vocabulary where nothing is normal size but must be Large, or Super, or Giant size.
Fewer: Fewer is all but replace by less. It used to be that things you could count, you would use fewer (e.g fewer dollars) and for things you couldn't count you use less (e.g. less money), but hardly anyone uses fewer any more, just less.
This is not the disappearance of words, but possibly a related subject of changes in clothing. I am noticing that more and more women are wearing trousers rather than dresses. Dresses are not nearly gone but seem to be headed that way.
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