Sublime

Every speaker is learning how to write exquisite layers of social nuance that we once reserved for speech, whether we mark them by switching alphabets, switching languages, or respelling words.

that, just as your weak ties are a greater source of new information like gossip and employment opportunities than your close friends who already know the same things you do, more weak ties also lead to more linguistic change.

social networking sites that prompt you to interact with denser ties—people you already know and friends of friends—tend to be less linguistically innovative.

We no longer accept that writing must be lifeless, that it can only convey our tone of voice roughly and imprecisely, or that nuanced writing is the exclusive domain of professionals. We’re creating new rules for typographical tone of voice. Not the kind of rules that are imposed from on high, but the kind of rules that emerge from the collective p