Heidi Bond gets pushed a long way out along that gradient I was just talking about.

It makes me melancholy, you know. I’d best have a box of kleenices nearby, in case it overwhelms me.

No seriously, if you think about it, this abbreviated slangy crap people use online (especially ESL writers) might be taken as evidence for the fundamental difference between reading and writing — these are folks reading Rowling (and lots and lots and lots of words she wrote), but who on the face of it haven’t integrated her language very well, though they can clearly parse it. Imitation does not follow from exposure.

Either that, or you’ve gotta buy into that whole English is a Living Tongue bulldada. And you know, we need to decide. It’s gotta be one or the other….

It also makes me think about the dynamics of cultural mixing brought about by large wide-ranging shocks to the system. Now where’d that meme come from?