Excellent thread, with longer-lived gems thrown in. I especially liked the "baroque and slightly greasy" description of AI prose.
Approximately 100 years ago when I did my English degree (1992-95), I did a course called History of the English language. We spent more time than I'd have liked on Middle English orthography, but the core text was the pithily titled "Language Change: Progress or Decay?" by Jean Aitchison
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