One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

I'm not always prepared to bow down just because one person, now matter how good a researcher, says 'I've refuted it. End of argument.'

But that is precisely what the OP invited us to produce in this thread! A refutation. An end of the argument.

I believe I have provided it.

I can do nothing about the refusal of anyone to accept an incontrovertible, unequivocal and undeniable fact which refutes the Diary.

[Iconoclast]

Scratching the initials of the canonical five, and the canonical five ONLY, is what I would expect from a hoaxer toeing the party line.

Unless there really was a cononical five and the author of the journal got it right because he was the culprit.

It's not impossible ...

[David Orsam]

I joined the casebook for discussion and debate not just not to listen to someone condescendingly telling me that they can't possibly, under any circumstance, be wrong. And definately not to hear someone imply that I'm just to dim to 'absorb' what I'm told.

Well now I definitely never said or implied that you were too dim to absorb anything.

But, clearly, you will have needed to absorb a huge amount of material in a very short space of time and the task evidently proved too much for you. I mean, take the Bee Journal example in the JTR Forums thread. That error was corrected a little bit later in the same thread but you missed it. And you clearly hadn't read all my posts on this subject earlier in this thread because you still placed reliance on Harrison's 1860 document as recently as yesterday.

Until #3381 you didn't give me any sign that you understood my argument about the different phases but even after that in #3387 you gave an example of your grandfather speaking of one off jobs in the 1950s which I found a little bit bizarre given that I have been saying that the expression "one off job" came into usage within the patternmaking profession much earlier than that.

Most of your posts have been premised on the assumption, as if it was a fact, that "one off" was used in the 19th century to mean a unique manufactured or designed item without any acknowledgment that there is no evidence of it and even if it was used in such a way that it is then a big leap of imagination for someone to apply that concept to a person or an event. So big in fact that no-one is known to have done it until the mid-twentieth century.

The fact of the matter is that if you carry out the searches yourself you will see that a "one off" is very much a trade expression during the early 1900s not in common usage and this continues up to the 1940s but then it slowly starts to seep into common usage to mean a one off item but, even then, year after year there is absolutely no metaphorical usage of the term to apply to people or events and then slowly one finds that, as the expression "one off" becomes understood and familiar, to mean a unique item, it is occasionally referred to during the 1950s in respect of people and events and then much more so during the 1960s when there is an explosion of use of the term. Perhaps you have to see it happening for yourself but there is a clear linear progression in the way that the term is used and there is no way that it was suddenly and out of the blue used once in the 1880s prior to this steady and clearly explicable evolution of the phrase and then not used again for fifty years.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike,

They certainly broke the mould when they made you.

Ho ho, I think I was receiving your kind though slightly backhanded compliment as a means to an end, but I'm going to own it anyway.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Hi Gut,

So you are saying the science got it right here about when ink met paper? That was what this particular test was all about, wasn't it? Suits me fine. But wouldn't that imply that 'one off instance' must date back at least as far as 1932, and probably a lot further back, given the sheer improbability that the diary would have contained the first ever example of those three little words being used together in any context?

Love,

Caz
X

Ha ha - gotcha!

[Iconoclast]

Wasn't suggesting for a moment that you were, Caz. My comment was a general aside about the whole stopwatch issue. Of course, there's no reason why Jack/Maybrick didn't kill only the canonical five in Whitechapel but it's a little too convenient for my liking. Maybrick neglects to include the prostitute he allegedly strangled in Manchester. Perhaps he never learned her name or he didn't consider her part of the Ripper's legacy.

A stopwatch, guffaw! You are a one, Harold D! A right old geezer, ain't ya!

[Iconoclast]

Well now I definitely never said or implied that you were too dim to absorb anything.

Indefatiguable. Nil desperandum. Take no prisoners. Offer no quarter.

Almost a legend already!

[David Orsam]

That said, I see that there's no point in going around in circles. I'd always heard that diary debate got a little heated and there's no issue with that. It's just a new experience for me to have a pretty moderate viewpoint treated as if I'd suggested that the main component of the moon was Red Leicester. Or that there's one person on the thread that there's no point in debating because he simply cannot be wrong.

I'm sorry your experience of this debate has not been what you hoped but you can't expect everyone to agree with you about everything. I happen to disagree that you have adopted "a pretty moderate viewpoint". I think it's an extreme and stubborn one.

Don't forget that you started this recent debate by saying "Just one properly disproving fact would do the job...I just haven't heard one yet." This gave the impression that you were aware of all the offered counterpoints and had read all the posts but you hadn't. As someone who had already posted in this thread what I regard as "one properly disproving fact" (and had written at some length about it) I think I was perfectly entitled to defend my position.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm sorry your experience of this debate has not been what you hoped but you can't expect everyone to agree with you about everything. I happen to disagree that you have adopted "a pretty moderate viewpoint". I think it's an extreme and stubborn one.

Don't forget that you started this recent debate by saying "Just one properly disproving fact would do the job...I just haven't heard one yet." This gave the impression that you were aware of all the offered counterpoints and had read all the posts but you hadn't. As someone who had already posted in this thread what I regard as "one properly disproving fact" (and had written at some length about it) I think I was perfectly entitled to defend my position.

And I'm perfectly entitled to express a doubt however 'extreme' you feel it to be. Although I fail to see why my view is extreme when I've always stressed that I'm talking about possibilities (probably remote ones) and not certain facts. As you seem to be certain that the first uses of the phrase 'one off' could not have meant unique as opposed to one item. That appears to be an assumption on your part. I take and understand all of your points. I just can't see how all phrases 'have' to have been recorded in some way at the time of their earliest usage. It may irritate you that there's someone in existence that expresses the remotes possibility of a doubt but that's the case.

[David Orsam]

And I'm perfectly entitled to express a doubt however 'extreme' you feel it to be.

When have I ever tried to stop you from speaking?

[David Orsam]

As you seem to be certain that the first uses of the phrase 'one off' could not have meant unique as opposed to one item. That appears to be an assumption on your part.

Hardly an "assumption on my part". The dictionaries and the experts say that "one off" is a twentieth century expression. Perhaps you think everyone is making an assumption. I have made a concession (based on the reasons I have given) that "one off" probably existed in a very different form in the 19th century, but not as an expression in use in the English language. As a notation only.

[David Orsam]

I just can't see how all phrases 'have' to have been recorded in some way at the time of their earliest usage

I haven't said that though so you are railing against something you have imagined.

I have explained to you about the linear progression - the evolution - of the expression "one off" that can be seen very clearly if you research the way it developed in the English language but if you want to completely ignore that then it's up to you.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hardly an "assumption on my part". The dictionaries and the experts say that "one off" is a twentieth century expression. Perhaps you think everyone is making an assumption. I have made a concession (based on the reasons I have given) that "one off" probably existed in a very different form in the 19th century, but not as an expression in use in the English language. As a notation only.

Well that's something. You said that dictionaries and experts say 'one off' is a twentieth century expression (which I take you to mean 'one off' in any form?) But you admit that it probably existed in the 19th century in a different form (i.e. A purely industrial expression?) Therefore, the dictionaries and the experts are wrong on that point? And I'm not such a sensitive soul that I can't survive an explaination if I've misinterpreted your point.

[David Orsam]

Well that's something. You said that dictionaries and experts say 'one off' is a twentieth century expression (which I take you to mean 'one off' in any form?) But you admit that it probably existed in the 19th century in a different form (i.e. A purely industrial expression?) Therefore, the dictionaries and the experts are wrong on that point? And I'm not such a sensitive soul that I can't survive an explaination if I've misinterpreted your point.

Yes, you have misinterpreted the point.

I'm saying it was not a "purely industrial expression".

It was a notation. Nothing more than like writing x1 or x2 or x3 etc. on a plan.

It wasn't an expression. It couldn't be used in a sentence. It wasn't part of the English language.

[Herlock Sholmes]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;417521]I'm sorry your experience of this debate has not been what you hoped but you can't expect everyone to agree with you about everything. I happen to disagree that you have adopted "a pretty moderate viewpoint". I think it's an extreme and stubborn one.

If we have anything at all in common David (and I can imagine you saying 'perish the thought') ill concede stubbornness.