The Lusk Letter - Swanson's Transcription

[Chris]

smezenen

Just to clarify, I am not so much basing my interpretation on the fact that these final upstrokes appear, as explaining how the upstroke can make "Sir" look like "Sor".

The overwhelming argument for the "Sir" interpretation is simply that "Sir" - not "Sor" - is precisely the word we should expect to see in that position.

Thank you for explaining what you meant by the upstroke. However, in that case I really don't understand the point. Surely in joined-up handwriting one can't assume a stroke is a continuation of the same letter because there is no break in the line?

[smezenen]

Originally Posted by Chris

smezenen

Just to clarify, I am not so much basing my interpretation on the fact that these final upstrokes appear, as explaining how the upstroke can make "Sir" look like "Sor".

The overwhelming argument for the "Sir" interpretation is simply that "Sir" - not "Sor" - is precisely the word we should expect to see in that position.

Thank you for explaining what you meant by the upstroke. However, in that case I really don't understand the point. Surely in joined-up handwriting one can't assume a stroke is a continuation of the same letter because there is no break in the line?

I agree that Sir is the word you or I would expect to see there but given that the author has spelled some words phonetically with accent, he may have misspelled this word as in Kidne for kidney, prasarved for preserved, nise for nice, tother for the other, knif for knife, wate for wait, and whil for while. Sor for Sir would be phoneticaly correct if the writer is trying to fake an accent.

Of these examples two of his misspellings convince me the writer was trying to fake an accent. He spells knife as knif when phonetically it should have been nife and while as whil when it should have been wile. The other thing that convinces me that the writer is faking an accent is the fact that we never hear our own accent. For example talk to someone from Alabama or Georgia (my wife) and metion their accent and they will tell you they dont have one and that you are the one with the accent.