Premise: Brocade or chiffon dresses covered in who-knows-what utterances in beautiful Chinese and Arabic script, or dresses wittily made of paper printed with the New York Yellow Pages, all express a joyful relish in the decay of the written word, a forthright pleasure in the way its meaning has been draining away.

Hypothesis: Respect for the written word has diminished slowly over the years.
Relation: neutral