The GSG. What Does It Mean??

[Tom_Wescott]

Ally,

When I can explain why the Ripper would feel obliged to relieve women of their organs on the open street I'll begin work on explaining his thought processes on writing and grammar.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

Really? So HRH had a group of PCs run off anyone who used abbreviations back in 1888 A.D.? OK...

I realize that a high falutin editor like you can't be bothered with reading what people actually write (contributes to the current state of events at RN, I imagine). So I am sure that you missed me saying that the Victorians had acronyms, they just weren't commonly used by the general population.

So we're supposed to believe Eisenhower was completely radical when he came up with the WPA, TVA, CWA, FHA and so forth in the 1930s?

That was almost as good as Tom thinking we shared a commono language with the Romans. Not as good, I grant you, but almost.

Nearly every thing he did as president was discussed at the time as an acronym, and it wasn't because he invented the concept. Wherever Don got the info you accepted as gospel, the person making the claim was just plain ignorant.

Now I am sure you are as clueless with decades as you are with Presidents, but allow me to explain timeline Something becomes COMMON after it is introduced and used by the vast majority of the population. Acronyms as a concept didn't even enter into the OED until almost 1900 if my memory serves me correctly. So the concept from that point on, would have gained in popularity so that 40 years later, they would start becoming more popular and start to be used more often. What is used in 1930 is irrelevant when discussing the usage of it half a century prior to that. Once something is INTRODUCED as common usage, it's usage grows until it peaks and dies out. Once again, that's like saying because we use net speak commonly today and people are even using it to write in college essays, then netspeak would have been used in 1970. It doesn't work like that.

Again, I understand why a high-falutin editor such as yourself would have a problem with concepts like "commonly used" but that's okay.

It would be true to say that acronyms became more common past the mid 20th century, but they had been in common usage well before that. Crack open a book sometime and see for yourself.

Which you know, is pretty much what I said. Except for the fact that they were NOT in common usage in Victorian England among the general population.


Heya Tom,

Do you want to address the question as to why a person would think of the Working Men's club society by it's obscure formal title that not even its members used? I mean your boy Dan's busting a gut to defend the ludicrous idea that it was a acronym, and you can't even be bothered to address why a person would use an acronym, which was uncommon for the time, for a name that wasn't even commonly used.

[Supe]

Tom,

I quite agree that Howard came down too hard on you in his initial (pun?)post. I certainly didn't mean my earlier post to sound as Howard interpreted it. But then neither of us is among his favorite folk.

Second, as you know but others may not. I never said you were categorically wrong. It is a clever idea, but because "initialism" does not seem a hallmark of LVP literature or reporting, I think it is less likely that you are right.

Don.

[Supe]

Dan,

So we're supposed to believe Eisenhower was completely radical when he came up with the WPA, TVA, CWA, FHA and so forth in the 1930s?

Eisenhower? WPA, TVA? 1930s. Now that is ignorance. Try, maybe, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Dealk.

Don.

[Tom_Wescott]

Technically, what you're describing (and what I was describing) is initialism. However, it's generically referred to as an acronym by most.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[JSchmidt]

Just to pop in a short remark: Are you sure it would have to be an acronym and not just a plain old abbreviation? Because the graffiti does not seem to have included any phonetic markers, thus we would be reduced to morphology and we could only say that it were a misread abbreviation.

[Tom_Wescott]

Without getting too deep in the hoopla over this ridiculous attempt to translate the GSG into an "alternative ripperological" interpretation....amazing how Wescott now sounds like Radka and D.Ogilvie Souden has to correct Wescott....it must be true that some of us become the thing we hate,eh,Wescott? What next? Kosminski,the unstable hairdresser... an actual anarchist?

Dude, for real. Do you see me talking about you? No. You have your own forum where you preach that no insulting will be allowed and where you ban people left and right for this stuff. Yet you feel the need to constantly pop up over here and insult Casebookers. What gives? Mitch asked for theories on the graffiti, I thought I'd toss mine up. I argued it's side, yes, but I promoted it as an 'alternative' to the Juwes theory. Yes, Don Souden corrected me and added to my store of knowledge. Is he not allowed to do that? That this somehow makes me Radka makes sense only in your warped mind.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Dan Norder]

acronyms as common substitutions didn't come into play until the mid-20th century.

Really? So HRH had a group of PCs run off anyone who used abbreviations back in 1888 A.D.? OK...

I don't take what "don souden" says as gospel, I take what linguistic analysis says as gospel.

No, you take Don Souden at gospel for what he claims linguistic analysis says is gospel...

Linguistic analysis is as precise a field as forensics. Acronyms were not in common usage until the mid-20th century. That's just linguistic fact

So we're supposed to believe Eisenhower was completely radical when he came up with the WPA, TVA, CWA, FHA and so forth in the 1930s? Nearly every thing he did as president was discussed at the time as an acronym, and it wasn't because he invented the concept. Wherever Don got the info you accepted as gospel, the person making the claim was just plain ignorant.

It would be true to say that acronyms became more common past the mid 20th century, but they had been in common usage well before that. Crack open a book sometime and see for yourself.

[paul emmett]

Hi, Celesta. You were fine. No offense given and none taken. I'm just trying to defend what I see as an essential minority opinion, and I see wit and play as eternal--even Victorian.

[Celesta]

Sorry, Paul. I was just referring to the latter part of Sam's post RE applying standards of our time to those of 1888, not trying to negate anyone's ideas. I should have been more specific.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stewart,

Many thanks for the clarification.

Regards,

Simon

[Stewart P Evans]

Official Reports

Hi All,
One interesting aspect [to me at least] of the Mitre Square murder/GSG incident is that Commissioner Warren, Chief Inspector Swanson, Superintendent Arnold and PC Long all wrote their reports on November 6th—five weeks after the event.
Is it usual for the police to wait so long before writing their reports?
Regards,
Simon

All official reports must be looked at in the light of what they are. Swanson's overall report was just that, and these often followed a few weeks after the event when he was in a position to collate all his information and statements into a chronological and, as much as possible, complete account.

The reports of Warren, Arnold and Long appear to be the result of the controversy over the erasing of the chalked wall message by the Met after Fraser and his men complained of the action. You will see that at the end of October Matthews was asking for explanations all round from both the City and the Met Police and Fraser was going to be asked to attend the Home Office.

Long's statement for the inquest, however, would have been written at the beginning of October, prior to his appearance before Langham.

[paul emmett]

Hi Paul,I'm arguing that the "pattern" of playfulness and subtlety is a largely modern perception, and that there's a danger that our view of his character may be distorted by looking at the case through modern eyes.

Hello, Sam, Stewart, Celesta.

Sam, I think this quote pulls in two directions. One, only recently have we talked about playfulness and subtlety, and two, playfulness and subtlety are more of a modern thing. Wilde's quote from Stweart's post--and Shakespeare--suggest that the latter isn't true. And if the former is true, if we have only recently discussed the play of JTR, that certianly doesn't rule out playfulness.

As far as yearning for the correspondence to be genuine, perhaps there is a bit of that despite my longing to be objective. But might not there be an oppisite kind of prepatory set? Couldn't, "I certianly don't want to be fanciful or overread the evidence" lead to its own "biases"?

But let's be objective. I, say, think "Dear Boss" is real for various reasons, reasons certianly including internal evidence. Once I think that it is real, I, of course, think Jack named himself. And I agree with Wilde that a mask tells us more than a face, a name one selects certianly tells us more than one one is given.
So when I look at connotations of the name JTR and find them "playful"--and subtle--I don't think that has anything to do with past Ripper "scholars." And I hope it has nothing to do with my whimsy. For me, it's following the evidence--not following McCormick or the Riddler.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

One interesting aspect [to me at least] of the Mitre Square murder/GSG incident is that Commissioner Warren, Chief Inspector Swanson, Superintendent Arnold and PC Long all wrote their reports on November 6th—five weeks after the event.

Is it usual for the police to wait so long before writing their reports?

Regards,

Simon

[Celesta]

Hi Paul,I'm arguing that the "pattern" of playfulness and subtlety is a largely modern perception, and that there's a danger that our view of his character may be distorted by looking at the case through modern eyes.

Very well said, Gareth, and it applies to everything discussed on this site. We delude ourselves by judging the past through our later day standards.