Lexicography and Nick Cave

This is my first attempt at a blog so bear with me.
A thread the other day about the Oxford Dictionary incorporating texting and forum abbreviations mixed with a song I was listening to got me thinking.  Is our language becoming a shrunken remnant with only acronyms replacing full words that convey the same things?
I was listening to the song Abattoir Blues by Nick Cave last night, and I couldn't help but wonder how many people still know what an abottoir is.  I spent a large part of my youth reading Archie Comic's version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and various X-related titles with a dictionary next to me to figure out some of the superfluous language invoked by many of my favorite characters.
More and more it seems that expanding your vocabulary is frowned upon unless it is technical jargon used just in a workplace or acronyms for non-verbal communication.
I will admit to having been made fun of for most of my life for people not understanding some of the words I use.
In case you do not know an abattoir is, it is a synonym of a slaughterhouse.  I do find it more interesting to use than the latter.  I cannot help but wonder if this hasn't gone by the wayside due to a push by certain groups to attack the industry, though that would not cover it all. 
I have an affinity for archaic words and am just lamenting that it seems that even the established bastion of words seems to have abandoned them for, imo, hodgepodge.