Page 327 - Practical English Usage 3ed - Michael Swan, Oxford

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influence from other dialects
British English is heavily influenced by American English. Some structures which were not used by British speakers half a century ago are now as common as their older British equivalents.
[ feel like I'm getting a cold. (Older British form: [ [eel as if I'm getting a cold.)
Do you have today's newspaper? (Older British form: Have you (got) today's newspaper?)
Languages simplify themselves
As languages develop, complicated structures often become simpler and more regular. This may be happening with English conditional sentences - structures with would or would have in both clauses are quite common in speech.
[[you'd have asked I'd have told you.
Small, less important distinctions are confused or disappear
Some irregular verb forms like sank/sunk, sang/sung or lay/laid are quite often confused in speech. Examples from the British radio:
He wrote eight operas, all of which sunk without trace.
. . . a song she sung in yesterday's concert.
Infinitives and -ing forms after verbs also sometimes get mixed up. An example from a letter:
[ now have pleasure to enclose the correct proposal form. (instead of ... pleasure in enclosing . . . )
When confusions like these become widespread, they can lead to language change. This may well happen with the possessive's form: more and more people are leaving out the apostrophe or putting it in the 'wrong' place, so that this spelling convention might one day lose its imponance and even disappear.
New forms and uses spread through the language
Progressive verb forms came into English a few hundred years ago, and gradually became used more and more widely. There are still a few verbs that are not generally used in progressive forms (see 471), but even these are losing their resistance. Some typical modem examples:
I'm understanding French a lot better now. How many eggs were you wanting?
'Underground' forms become respectable
Some forms have always existed in the language, but have been 'driven underground' by prescriptive rules (see 309.4), so that they have been avoided by careful speakers. People are now more tolerant of such forms, so they are becoming more common. Some examples:
Here's your papers. (instead of Here are . .. - see 532.4)
Somebody's left their umbrella behind. (instead of ... his or her umbrella -
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see 528)
John and me went to the cinema. between you and I
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