[How did this come to be?

In America, the symbolic order began turning in the 1950s. It attained temporary stability in the 1960s. The language (as system of differences) remained weirdly jelled until the 2000s.

Many circumstances contributed to this stasis.

A demographic condition played a role. The so-called boomers born in the late 1940s and all the 1950s dominated discourse for many years.

An institutional condition may have also played a role in the the temporary stability. State-subsidized university systems promoted conformity in language use.

The state universities then set the stage for the postmodern conversion of discourse into a language game during the decades since the 1960s.]