"If responses on Mudcat are anything to go by intellectualism and anti-intellectualism are wielded freely in folkspeak and rebuffed or embraced depending on whose side the word-monger is."

Amen to that. I find the familiar pedantry of the 'you failed to dot your i's and cross your t's!' kind loathsome here. But I think I dislike 'plain English' aggression moreso. As it smacks to me, of inverted snobbery - where here in this preserver of antiquation of all places, one would presume it would ideally not exist!
Long live eloquence. Must be one of the reasons I like to read Victorian childrens literature...