An experiment

[Henry Flower]

w = vv.

Hmmm.

So Pierre, just to clarify - because sometimes when I'm laughing this hard I miss things - are you floating the idea that a policeman mistranscribed 'dg' as 'w'?

I mean, however far back into the mists of time you reach to persuade us that w=vv, in 1888 there was a single letter known as.... w.

And you think that there was a way that d with its high ascender, and g with its descending loop, might together have been either written or read so poorly as to be recorded as the very neat, regular, symmetrical letter w?

No. You must be suggesting something else. Only some kind of over-reaching born of desperation could explain such an outlandish suggestion. That's the kind of nonsense someone comes up with when they're feverishly trying to force the evidence to fit their theory rather than conducting honest research...

[Henry Flower]

Maybe I shoulvn't mock. After all, v+vho am I to juvve? The letters g, d, and v vo look dery similar. Dghen I first reav your theory I thouvht to myself, oh my vov, this is varbade, but now egen I must avree you hage a voov point.

My sincere apolovies,

Henry Flov+ver

[GUT]

Maybe I shoulvn't mock. After all, v+vho am I to juvve? The letters g, d, and v vo look dery similar. Dghen I first reav your theory I thouvht to myself, oh my vov, this is varbade, but now egen I must avree you hage a voov point.

My sincere apolovies,

Henry Flov+ver

Vvell wone.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Good and funny points Gut and Henry.

Trying to get any kind of sensible or constructive contribution from Pierre is like trying to put an octopus into a bucket.

[Pierre]

Not a lot of people know there were 4 letters in the word "men".

n+n e n

and 8 in "blamed" - b l a n n e c l

There is no "double n" in the alphabet.

[David Orsam]

There is no "double n" in the alphabet.

Correct my dear boy and there is no "double v" in the alphabet either.

[Pierre]

Correct my dear boy and there is no "double v" in the alphabet either.

But there is a double u and that was originally a digraph constructed from the latin v.

[David Orsam]

But there is a double u and that was originally a digraph constructed from the latin v.

Who cares how it was originally constructed my dear boy?

All that matters is the visual representation.

Visually a w could be said to be comprised of either the letter u twice or the letter v twice depending on how it is written and an m could be said to be comprised of the letter n twice.

None of them look like a d and a g so it's all a bit bizarre discussing it isn't it?

[Pierre]

Who cares how it was originally constructed my dear boy?

All that matters is the visual representation.

Visually a w could be said to be comprised of either the letter u twice or the letter v twice depending on how it is written and an m could be said to be comprised of the letter n twice.

None of them look like a d and a g so it's all a bit bizarre discussing it isn't it?

Your opinion is that "all that matters" was a "visual representation".

I do not agree with you.

I think it matters that the author could write and read, could spell the rest of the words correctly, could use common words from an English dictionary and could use chalk and write on a brick wall.

I think it matters that the readers of the text got one word and the order of the words wrong.

[David Orsam]

could spell the rest of the words correctly

My dear boy, you may not be aware of it, but you are the author of countless posts on this forum in which a single word is wrongly spelt but the rest of the words are spelt correctly.

What do you think about that?

[Pierre]

My dear boy, you may not be aware of it, but you are the author of countless posts on this forum in which a single word is wrongly spelt but the rest of the words are spelt correctly.

What do you think about that?

We are not discussing my spelling, we are discussing the spelling in the GSG.

You are confused again.

[David Orsam]

We are not discussing my spelling, we are discussing the spelling in the GSG.

You are confused again.

I regret to say that it is you who is confused my dear boy. What we are discussing is whether it is common for an individual to write an otherwise correctly spelt sentence with a single word spelt wrong.

If you do it, why not the author of the CSG?

[Henry Flower]

Come now David! A person can either spell - in which case he can (and must!) spell all words that exist correctly - or he cannot spell, in which case he will misspell every word he writes. Them's the rules, my friend. Now the GSG writer proved he was a Correct Speller by spelling correctly almost all of the words he wrote, three-quarters of which were two or three letters long! A true professional, clearly. And because we know he was a Correct Speller, we know that any wrong spelling must, (because this is cheap suspect-led Ripperology 101) MUST constitute - wait for it - A CLUE!

Gosh darn, the riddling trickster left a clue! He left what looked like the letter W, and because that single letter was in ancient times a digraph, it's fair to suppose that the W was in fact two letters, most likely the letters dg. Because that is two letters, too, just as w once was.

Can one begin to imagine the scorn Pierre would pour upon reasoning of this contemptible, pitiable standard if proposed by someone else, and if the word 'judges' had no connection with his own theory....?!

Pierre, as ever, you appear before us as the one of the purest purveyors of that cheap brand of grasping, shoddy paperback Ripperology that gives the whole field a bad name. Well done, son.

[David Orsam]

What I find amazing, Henry, is that Pierre was able to predict from the very outset of this thread that if someone consulted a dictionary, they would be able to find a six letter word in that dictionary, beginning "Ju" and ending "es" which could be slotted into the CSG and, at the same time, would actually fit perfectly with his own theory as to the identity of the murderer.

The really clever thing is that that he didn't for one second think that anyone would uncover a suitable five letter word which, after all, is what "Juwes" is. Oh no, he was smart enough to realise that a diagraph constructed from the Latin does not appear on a wall by accident. We had to be looking at six letters.

Without Pierre himself ever opening a dictionary, or thinking about what the word might be, because he had neither the time nor the inclination, a member of this forum actually managed to find such a six letter word, proving that Pierre's prediction was 100% spot on.

It has fair restored my faith in science and history and shows that combining those two disciplines, throwing in a little black magic and psychic ability, while thinking very hard in one's bedroom, one can solve this damned murder mystery in 2017.

[Flower and Dean]

The really clever thing is that that he didn't for one second think that anyone would uncover a suitable five letter word which, after all, is what "Juwes" is. Oh no, he was smart enough to realise that a diagraph constructed from the Latin does not appear on a wall by accident. We had to be looking at six letters.

I don't know... what if the graffiti really meant "jujube"?