In the 90s it was Craigslist and AOL chat rooms, then Match.com and Kiss.com. But the lengthy, heartfelt e-mails exchanged by the main characters in You’ve Got Mail (1998) seem positively Victorian in comparison to the messages sent on the average dating app today.

A similar but less spectacular technology of monsterization propels the representation of Islam in England, where the Saracen threat never encroached and therefore was always in danger of seeming fantastic and remote.

the very first attempt to embody, to arrange, or to grammaticize, this language

When the inspectors boarded the train and I didn't have a ticket, I thought it was worth a try to pretend I didn't speak English.