decloseting methods (was: RE: Results of Poll by Email No. 12.9

Peter [In a very interesting summary] quotes David Peterson:
>         the response I got from big John McWhorter (my pidgins
> and creoles prof.;  he's written a bunch of books, and junk) was that he
> started laughing largely, and said, "Have you been fooling around with
> Esperanto?"  That's been the worst so far, and it weren't that bad."
I hope you tactfully but firmly put him right.

My general experience goes thus:

[various sorts of prior context]
ME: ... I invent a language.
OTHER: What, like Esperanto?
ME: No; as a work of art, like Tolkien's languages.
OTHER: Oh, he invented languages, did he?
ME: Yes. Indeed, all his other literary works were created to provide
a setting for his languages.

-- I find that this serves to give an indication of both the nature
and the nonrisibility of conlanging. Anyone who remains contemptuous
because they contemn Tolkien receives my polite disdain. (A dislike
of Tolkien due to a general aversion or indifference to mythopoeia
is no barrier to standing high in my esteem, but contempt for
Tolkien, which is a very widespread vice, mostly certainly is such
a barrier -- it is a veritable shibboleth.)

--And.