It's funny how many of the comments focused on these examples. I probably should have written up more about the 'text messages' angle; I was just using that as one example of someone referring to Zwicky's 'illusions'.

I'm not sure if you looked at Crystal's blog entry I linked to above. He spells out some of the interesting bits, albeit anecdotally. Presumably, the book goes into much more detail. For example:

For every one instance of u, there are nine of you, they found.

Also, I can't seem to find the reference at the moment, but I was recently reading a list of common abbreviations used in letter writing long before texting, like SWAK for "Sealed with a kiss".