The biggest fault

[Crystal]

Hi Caz

I'm not claiming to be an expert in anything, or to suggest that my view is the only one that counts. I have and do see and work with a lot of handwritten documents (amongst other things) from the 18th century onwards and so I am accustomed to them on a daily basis. That's all. I leave it to others to interpret that. In my view, the diary warrants altogether too much serious thought - the more I consider it, the less respect I have for it, and the more I think the forgers were neither sophisticated nor particularly bright. But anyway -

First, as far as I know, no, people did not generally use capital letters for these words in general use, as this is grammatically incorrect. If the usage is in terms of a proper noun, then yes. The same would be true of both periods. 'A Doctor' should not be capitalised. 'The Poste House' and 'The Exchange' yes if in the context of a name, no if as a description. I don't think these examples do anything to shed light on the matter.

The apostrophe is more of an issue. 'Don't' and 'Won't' both originated in the 17th century, and are common in personal written documents from the 18th century on. They are contractions, as I'm sure everyone knows - 'Don't' standing in for both 'Does not' and 'Do not' until the 19th century, when you find 'Doesn't' appearing more frequently - and as contractions, the apostrophe is crucial. I consider it unlikely in the extreme that an educated man of the 1880's would have omitted the apostrophe, however bonkers he was. 'Post Haste' should be hyphenated, and I think it would have been something of an anachronism at this date. I find the whole Olde Worlde 'Poste' business very suspicious. I cannot really believe that Maybrick would have misspelled the word, and I think that its usage in the diary is very telling - a rather amateurish and naive attempt to convey a sense of antiquity, which takes as its starting point 'The Poste House' as it stands today. It is clear to me that the forgers have believed, erroneously, that it was contemporary to the 1880's and assumed that this is how 'Post' was spelled in Olden Days. That's not as silly as it sounds, believe me.

Third, I can. The simple explanation is that they were experts in 19th century documents, not 20th century documents. There might be many explanations. Almost certainly, if you had 5, or 10 experts, their opinions would all differ. I do not say it is impossible that the hand responsible for the diary could have written in the 19th Century, just unlikely - It cannot be proven in absolute terms - It would however be unusual and atypical if it was. I base my judgement on an overall impression of the hand - I did say it was a guess. I freely confess that I haven't spent hours studying it, although I might, if I get the time. I find other oddities, though, like the capitalisation of words mid-sentence. I would not expect that in a document of the 1880's, rather I would expect to see it underlined for emphasis. I have a hunch - though I haven't followed it up yet - that the capitalisation of words mid-sentence is a later convention in handwritten personal documents of this nature.

I'm always happy to share anything that might be of use, and as always, quite happy to be wrong - I'm interested in the pursuit of knowledge, not in blowing my own trumpet!

[caz]

Hi Crystal,

Sorry, I got that totally wrong. I thought you were claiming to be an expert in the language used in the diary, and specifically in comparing writers from the 1880s with those schooled in the 1950s. My mistake.

In my view, the diary warrants altogether too much serious thought -

Did you mean the diary doesn't warrant too much thought?

First, as far as I know, no, people did not generally use capital letters for these words in general use, as this is grammatically incorrect. If the usage is in terms of a proper noun, then yes. The same would be true of both periods. 'A Doctor' should not be capitalised. 'The Poste House' and 'The Exchange' yes if in the context of a name, no if as a description. I don't think these examples do anything to shed light on the matter.

Fair enough, although I would really appreciate a second opinion on this one, by someone who does claim to be an expert on such things. The diarist does capitalise 'a Doctor', while I noticed in an earlier post that you don't, and neither would I. I'm not sure if it's a sign of ignorance on a hoaxer's part, however, or a deliberate stab at how a lower middle class Victorian merchant might write it.

I consider it unlikely in the extreme that an educated man of the 1880's would have omitted the apostrophe, however bonkers he was.

Have you actually read the diary? The apostrophes are only omitted because our diarist doesn't (or, as Sir Jim would put: does not) go in for any contractions. One of the few times we see an apostrophe is in St James's, which is spot on, despite many highly educated people today having no end of trouble. I would also write 1880s without the apostrophe that you use, but that may be personal style rather than a right/wrong issue.

'Post Haste' should be hyphenated...

My latest Chambers gives me 'posthaste' - no hyphen, no space, no capitals, while you would give me Poste-Haste, so who knows?

It is clear to me that the forgers have believed, erroneously, that it was contemporary to the 1880's and assumed that this is how 'Post' was spelled in Olden Days. That's not as silly as it sounds, believe me.

It won't be clear to me until I know why posthaste was rendered poste haste, and for all you know it could have been from knowing that 'Poste Restante' signs would have been on display in post offices of the 1880s.

I have a hunch - though I haven't followed it up yet - that the capitalisation of words mid-sentence is a later convention in handwritten personal documents of this nature.

So there is a difference between convention and correct grammar then. That's good to know because I thought you were telling me that using capitals for any mid-sentence nouns apart from proper ones was just a sign that the writer was poorly educated or not very bright. I hope you can dig something out on this one.

I don't mind you blowing your own trumpet. Just tune it up a bit for next time.

Love,

Caz
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[Soothsayer]

And finally, it didn't even occur to me that you were starting a Shipman thread. You missed the point. Which was that the use of Shipman was irrelevant as far as I could see. What does Shipman have to do with whether Maybrick wrote the diary (he didn't); whether Maybrick was the Ripper (almost certainly not); or whether the diary is a modern fake (it is) ?

Most Mudlike Crystal,

Many people reading my original posting would have spotted that the reference to Shipman was what some of us call 'illustrating the point'. It was a comparison designed to illustrate that we cannot simply take something to be necessarily true simply because we feel it is true.

Shipman was a doctor. Hold on, I have absolute faith in doctors, therefore he couldn't possibly have been a deranged psychopath!

The comparison was necessary, as I recall, because you made some claim along the lines of, the diary must be fake because no-one in the LVP would have used a scrapbook to keep such a journal. What you believe to be true forms the basis for what you then decide must be true. That's definitely self-righteous in anyone's diary, journal, or scrapbook.

Listen to Caz, Crystal - she truly is the voice of reason in all this.

[Crystal]

Quickly!

In an idle moment, I was checking something in the first edition of Peter Roget’s Thesaurus – always best to stick with the originals, I find – published 1852 (this is the one I have with me at the moment, not the privately published edition of 1805 – that’s in the other drawer..)

I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, Roget – so anyway, I thought, remembering the little spat Caz and I had regarding Post Haste, to see what Roget had to say on the word.

He says this:

DEGREES OF MOTION – VELOCITY – Post-Haste
(274)

And this:

RASHNESS – PRECIPITANCY – Post-Haste
(873)
Note the hyphenation in both cases.

I also noted the following whilst I was there –

IMBECILITY – Self-Opiniated
(499)

Interesting, isn’t it?

[halomanuk]

Wow,so a self-opinionated person is an imbecile ?

Great,i can think of about 10 people i can now call imbeciles without causing too much offence...

[Crystal]

Yes, I thought it apt.

[caz]

In an idle moment, I was checking something in the first edition of Peter Roget’s Thesaurus – always best to stick with the originals, I find – published 1852 (this is the one I have with me at the moment, not the privately published edition of 1805 – that’s in the other drawer..)

I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, Roget – so anyway, I thought, remembering the little spat Caz and I had regarding Post Haste, to see what Roget had to say on the word.

He says this:

DEGREES OF MOTION – VELOCITY – Post-Haste
(274)

And this:

RASHNESS – PRECIPITANCY – Post-Haste
(873)
Note the hyphenation in both cases.

I also noted the following whilst I was there –

IMBECILITY – Self-Opiniated
(499)

Interesting, isn’t it?

Hi Crystal,

Very interesting. Well done.

As I said, my latest Chambers gave me 'posthaste'. I wasn't claiming to be any kind of authority, or even to have an opinion, on how it should or would always have been written back in 1852 (when the real James Maybrick was 14) nor indeed in 1888 (when he was pushing 50).

I haven't got the faintest clue about the transition over time from, say:

"I shall do it Post-Haste" (using your 1852 example - I do find the capitalisation interesting there) to "I'll do it posthaste".

The expression, as you know, has its origins in the old direction on letters: haste, post, haste. But I haven't got the faintest clue how the diarist's 'poste haste' [sic] fits in timewise with the evolution of the expression over the years from three words to two words to one, including the adopting and dropping of the hyphen and capitalisation.

But the rogue e is clearly a misspelling, which would make 'Poste House' consistent in that regard. And none of it bodes well for any theory involving a hoaxer who used a dictionary. Beyond that, all is opinion - and none of it mine. I merely ask about the possibilities and the evidence behind rejecting all but one.

I haven't got the faintest clue how the real James Maybrick might have written it, either at 14, 50 or any time in between. It would depend entirely on how attentive he was in class; where he would have come across the expression at different points in his life, and how it was written on those occasions; and how much he even cared about such trifles. If people in today's ripper book/website world can still spell Cornwell (as in Patricia) 'Cornwall', for instance, I'm blowed if I know whether a small businessman in 1888 would have known how posthaste appeared in a dictionary of the day, let alone cared enough to check.

I didn't even have the faintest clue that the expression would have been considered 'something of an anachronism' by anyone in the LVP, given that it's used often enough these days and is in the latest dictionary as a current word, albeit that the post is rather slower these days, so 'posthaste' might now tend to imply 'eventually, if I feel like it'.

But I was genuinely interested in reading your forthright opinions, with or without evidence to back them up, and I would never have known that long post of yours was a textbook example of 'imbecility', had you not taught me that particular definition. If you check back, you will see that I was doing all the asking, in advance of expressing any strong opinions, as I don't feel blessed with enough expertise or information yet.

Thankfully, it looks like I don't have enough imbecility for the job either, so it's all good.

Onwards and upwards.

Love,

Caz
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