> most of the problematic readers were not concerned if their literal translations of Bleak House were not coherent, so obvious logical errors never seemed to affect them

The inability to understand sarcasm on the internet is far worse today than it was 10 years ago, and i don't think this can be explained by the influx of larger audience, because this keeps happening in very niche communities. It's something happening globally, even in non-english countries. my guess is it has to do with the dumbing-down of popular media (the internet) to the point where words are removed and only emoji are left (which severely limits the bandwidth of conversation)