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I feel like I'm about to re-enter an unpleasant quagmire.
Two things crossed my poor brain as I read this entire thread. They both dealt with "Being out side the box" or getting outside the box.
First - although I think Pierre does not accept this interpretation - perhaps the Ripper did not write the Graffito. I say that with some real reluctance, because years ago, in that book "Who Was Jack the Ripper" I wrote an essay in which I tried to demonstate how the word "Juwes" as a replacement for "Jews" was possibly linked to an 1882 murder (in Dalton, England) of a police officer by a man named Thomas Orrock, whose eventual guilt was proven in part by the discovery that the letters "O. R. R. O. C. K." were actually entirely on a chisel found near the dead policeman, but had erroneously been first seen (with a naked eye), as "R. O. C. K." (a deeper study with magnification found the first two letters that had been hidden by wear). This clue turned out to be connected (and I had a book that said as much) to a clue used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his first Sherlock Holmes novella, "A Study in Scarlet" involving the name (like "Orrock" was a name) of "Rachel", found on a wall near a murdered man. The name is written in blood. It is "R". "A." "C." "H." "E." without the final "L." and Inspector Lestrade (who finds the clue) believes the murder will be linked to a "Madame Rachel" (a curious separate issue arises about Lestrade's use of that name when he is boasting, but it was not part of my one page essay*)
My point in that 1,000 word essay was that Jack might have seen the first edition of "Beeton's Christmas Annual" for December 1887, which contained that novella of Conan Doyle's and got his idea to create a split word clue on the wall at Goulston Street. It was a clever idea, but like many it never caught on.
But because of Pierre's insistence of looking outside the box, so to speak, I thought (at first) that perhaps Jack did not write the words on the Goulston Street wall. How about suggesting this instead: Jack commits his murder and flees with the bloodstained apron. A friend of Jack has become suspicious, and sees the murder, and follows Jack, watching him drop the apron where it was found. Jack continues fleeing. The overly loyal friend quickly writes the graffito on the wall to throw a false clue to the police. He makes the whole thing up. That might be a conclusion. I find it hard to totally believe as I put it down, but by isolating the whole quote a a false clue, it certainly puts all of us "outside the box" in considering what it meant!
The alternative idea was looking at the word "Juwes" and considering it as a linguistic curiosity as well as that double negative. My father was a linguist, and I don't pretend to have a one-hundredth of his wonderful abilities with English and ten other languages (including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, Russian, Yiddish, and French, Italian, and Spanish). I do know that dictionaries (like the Oxford English Dictionary) have etymology sections, and I keep thinking Pierre wanted us to concentrate on that. He also was stressing roots or words. My father sometimes mentioned this to me, regarding Hebrew for example, and how letter combinations from that tongue can connect many words (this also happens in other languages). But "Juwes"? Sorry, nothing comes to mind, except one possibility, which I fear Pierre did not mean.
What if "Juwes" was a misspelling of "Jewess"? Meaning female Jews. In that case the double negative about "men" may mean that it was "women" that Jack or whoever wrote the graffito meant. The women would not be caught for nothing. Now if "Jewess" for some reason was a slang term for "prostitute" or "whore" in 1888, than the phrase might mean "The whores will not be caught [give their physical favors] for nothing [without payment]." I must admit I find that stretching things quite a bit. I prefer what I wrote that was published in that book.
Jeff
Two things crossed my poor brain as I read this entire thread. They both dealt with "Being out side the box" or getting outside the box.
First - although I think Pierre does not accept this interpretation - perhaps the Ripper did not write the Graffito. I say that with some real reluctance, because years ago, in that book "Who Was Jack the Ripper" I wrote an essay in which I tried to demonstate how the word "Juwes" as a replacement for "Jews" was possibly linked to an 1882 murder (in Dalton, England) of a police officer by a man named Thomas Orrock, whose eventual guilt was proven in part by the discovery that the letters "O. R. R. O. C. K." were actually entirely on a chisel found near the dead policeman, but had erroneously been first seen (with a naked eye), as "R. O. C. K." (a deeper study with magnification found the first two letters that had been hidden by wear). This clue turned out to be connected (and I had a book that said as much) to a clue used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his first Sherlock Holmes novella, "A Study in Scarlet" involving the name (like "Orrock" was a name) of "Rachel", found on a wall near a murdered man. The name is written in blood. It is "R". "A." "C." "H." "E." without the final "L." and Inspector Lestrade (who finds the clue) believes the murder will be linked to a "Madame Rachel" (a curious separate issue arises about Lestrade's use of that name when he is boasting, but it was not part of my one page essay*)
My point in that 1,000 word essay was that Jack might have seen the first edition of "Beeton's Christmas Annual" for December 1887, which contained that novella of Conan Doyle's and got his idea to create a split word clue on the wall at Goulston Street. It was a clever idea, but like many it never caught on.
But because of Pierre's insistence of looking outside the box, so to speak, I thought (at first) that perhaps Jack did not write the words on the Goulston Street wall. How about suggesting this instead: Jack commits his murder and flees with the bloodstained apron. A friend of Jack has become suspicious, and sees the murder, and follows Jack, watching him drop the apron where it was found. Jack continues fleeing. The overly loyal friend quickly writes the graffito on the wall to throw a false clue to the police. He makes the whole thing up. That might be a conclusion. I find it hard to totally believe as I put it down, but by isolating the whole quote a a false clue, it certainly puts all of us "outside the box" in considering what it meant!
The alternative idea was looking at the word "Juwes" and considering it as a linguistic curiosity as well as that double negative. My father was a linguist, and I don't pretend to have a one-hundredth of his wonderful abilities with English and ten other languages (including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, Russian, Yiddish, and French, Italian, and Spanish). I do know that dictionaries (like the Oxford English Dictionary) have etymology sections, and I keep thinking Pierre wanted us to concentrate on that. He also was stressing roots or words. My father sometimes mentioned this to me, regarding Hebrew for example, and how letter combinations from that tongue can connect many words (this also happens in other languages). But "Juwes"? Sorry, nothing comes to mind, except one possibility, which I fear Pierre did not mean.
What if "Juwes" was a misspelling of "Jewess"? Meaning female Jews. In that case the double negative about "men" may mean that it was "women" that Jack or whoever wrote the graffito meant. The women would not be caught for nothing. Now if "Jewess" for some reason was a slang term for "prostitute" or "whore" in 1888, than the phrase might mean "The whores will not be caught [give their physical favors] for nothing [without payment]." I must admit I find that stretching things quite a bit. I prefer what I wrote that was published in that book.
Jeff
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