Let me just say that:
1) I prefer period correct builds (but don't insist on them.)
2) I am not a grammar marm online.
3) My comments about not getting it had nothing to do with whether or not the King's English is falling into the abyss. In fact, JunkYardBike and I are now BFF's (note use of apostrophe) since his well-known "Southern Hemisphere" post. My man does get it.
4) I have extensively studied linguistics and, especially, semiotics, but that ain't why I'm here.
5) Some of my best friends are homophones.
6) Good point about "literal" - "literally" often means what "figuratively" used to - "The peloton literally exploded." Sometimes, though, the semantic content of a word expands to embrace a former metaphorical usage - in which case the figurative becomes the literal. This kind of thing happens all the time.