One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

Ironically, that's the very Graham, the former member of the British Institute of Foundrymen, who I quoted a little earlier, who could actually have contributed in a valuable way to this discussion but nope, not today.

[Herlock Sholmes]

David, I'll do everyone a favour and withdraw from the thread. I tend like pursuing small points as far as I can push them. If I've been too strident or exasperating I apologise.

All the best
Herlock

[Iconoclast]

This once-interesting thread is no longer a discussion - it is absolutely the nadir of any thread on any subject I have followed on Casebook in the dozen or more years I have been following it. It is, frankly, pathetic.

Graham

Steady on, son - just because you didn't get promoted and you bought that cheat Lansbury - you don't have to go criticising The Greatest Thread of All.

It is inviolate. The best ever.

Everyone who posts to it should be honoured every time they do so.

I know I am.

[Harry D]

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

Haha! D'oh. Gonna chalk that one down to caffeine deprivation.

[Graham]

Steady on, son - just because you didn't get promoted and you bought that cheat Lansbury - you don't have to go criticising The Greatest Thread of All.

It is inviolate. The best ever.

Everyone who posts to it should be honoured every time they do so.

I know I am.

Ike,

I can only throw myself at your feet and crave mercy and indulgence. I've hung my head ever since. I'm on holiday, have hardly left the hotel 'cos the weather is so crap, took a drop too much of a rare juice of the barley, and was having nightmares in which the words One Off Instance burned in letters of fire above a black sea of ink. Absolution is begged.

To (hopefully) set myself back upon the straight and narrow, I was intending to post the following comments until I, er, lost it:

1) Caz knows much more about this than I do, but I believe it was Keith Skinner (was it he?) at a Ripper Convention in Liverpool who stated that he had proof of the Diary's Battlecrease origin; however, as far as I am aware he thus far hasn't told us what that 'proof' might be.

2) In connection with the above is the claim made by Paul Feldman that two electricians who were working at Battlecrease abstracted 'something' from the house and took it to Liverpool University for examination. Feldman says he applied to the University for more information but received none, not even what the abstracted article actually was. Whether this was a book was, I understand, never actually established, but plainly Feldman had his suspicions. It it was the Diary, then precisely how it got into Barrett's hands is a matter for conjecture. Unless, of course, this whole story was a fabrication (but I don't think it was).

3) Prior to reaching the exalted status of OAP, my employer counted Diamine Inks Ltd as a customer, and as Sales Manager I visited Diamine several times. I never met Alec Voller, their Chief Chemist, but a short time prior to my retirement I met a former colleague of his, who assured me that (a) Mr Voller was 100% certain that the Diary ink was not Diamine (as claimed by Mike Barrett in one of his 'confessions') and that (b) the ink of the Diary did not go onto the paper within recent decades. If anyone should know, it is Alec Voller.

You will recall that a US chemist called Rod McNeill examined the Diary via his 'ion migration' test and initially stated that the ink went onto the paper in about 1921 give or take a dozen years (IIRC). Later he modified this finding to a more recent date, why I'm not totally certain.

4) I never believed that the Diary was penned by James Maybrick (sorry, Ike) but I do believe that it is old, and not a modern hoax. For what purpose it was written I can't say, but could make a reasonable guess. Well, a couple of guesses, actually.

Sorry if all the above has been posted here previously - Ike and others, I trust that my hoped-for rehabilitation is now accepted.

Graham

PS: there was never, ever, any hope of them coming straight back into the Premiership - to do so would have required far, far more skill than they possessed at the time - or even later, some would say.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I know, I know, I said I was withdrawing from the thread. I had every intention of doing so but I've just been looking through the JTR forum (which I don't often do) and found this. I couldn't see any rebuttal on there but that obviously doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. Possibly I haven't looked in the right area. I would be interested in any opinion, especially David's. The posting is about, yes you've guessed it, the phrase one off being used in conjunction with another word to form an expression ( one off occaison or one off instance for eg) Apologies if I'm repeating something that you are all aware of.

'The plan though the simplest from a 'one off standpoint' may be apt to leave an ugly parting mark in the casting.'

The Model Engineer and Practical Electrician Vol 10. 1904

I genuinely don't know if this has been refuted as was the 'bee journal' one. I'm just seeking an opinion.

Regards
Herlock

[David Orsam]

I know, I know, I said I was withdrawing from the thread. I had every intention of doing so but I've just been looking through the JTR forum (which I don't often do) and found this. I couldn't see any rebuttal on there but that obviously doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. Possibly I haven't looked in the right area. I would be interested in any opinion, especially David's. The posting is about, yes you've guessed it, the phrase one off being used in conjunction with another word to form an expression ( one off occaison or one off instance for eg) Apologies if I'm repeating something that you are all aware of.

'The plan though the simplest from a 'one off standpoint' may be apt to leave an ugly parting mark in the casting.'

The Model Engineer and Practical Electrician Vol 10. 1904

I genuinely don't know if this has been refuted as was the 'bee journal' one. I'm just seeking an opinion.

Not only have I written quite a lot about it in this thread but I was the first person to find it, despite those muppets in JTR Forums thinking they had made a great discovery.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So you have. I'll make a quote for clarity:

I'm certain that nothing in Garscadden's use of the expression 'one off standpoint' which helps diary believers at all. It is only about manufacturing something and is written for people who understand patternmaking and patternmaking diagrams and is not in any metaphorical sense.'

The phrase means, in industry terms, a way of looking at the manufacturing process with specific regard to whether the item is unique (i.e. One off) or not. If that item was not a unique (i.e. One off) item but one that required greater production batches then the pattern would have to be change to allow more parts per mould. So another way of saying it would be, if he were talking to a potential customer for example:" well if you only want the one this is the pattern that we will need to have made. But if you will at some point require large quantities a new pattern will have to be made." This means, very obviously , that the phrase means 'looking at the process from a different viewpoint.' Indeed he could have said 'from a one off viewpoint,' and it would have meant the same thing. So it actually 'describes' something. Something that could be looked at in different ways. It is a proper phrase which could be applied to other situations.

You had previously stated that this kind of usage hadn't been used since well after the war.

So here we have a word (standpoint) used in conjunction with (one off) to make a phrase which describes a different, and importantly different, viewpoint of a process. In 1904. A mere 16 years before the diary. No great yawning chasm of years really. Yes, it's to do with manufacturing and industry in this case, accepted. But this is written by a human; speaking the words in his head as he writes them. How can it be impossible that he'd never spoken those words out loud (whether in 1904 or 1902 or in 1896). And therefore, how can it be impossible, completely impossible that someone else used 'one off' in conjunction with the words standpoint, viewpoint, time, instance, event or whatever in the preceding 16 years. Just because, at the moment, we have no surviving written record?

[David Orsam]

The phrase means, in industry terms, a way of looking at the manufacturing process with specific regard to whether the item is unique (i.e. One off) or not.

Firstly, what you are doing here is taking the "industry" definition of one off and applying it to the 1904 article which you haven't read. Did you absorb everything I said about it? It's by no means clear that Garscadden is using the phrase to refer to something unique.

Secondly, there is nothing metaphorical in the reference to "one off standpoint". It just means looking at something from the standpoint of a one-off. It is completely different, therefore, to the expression "one off instance". There is no connection between the two.

[David Orsam]

You had previously stated that this kind of usage hadn't been used since well after the war.

No, I haven't. I was referring to a completely different type of usage.

[David Orsam]

So you have. I'll make a quote for clarity:

I'm certain that nothing in Garscadden's use of the expression 'one off standpoint' which helps diary believers at all. It is only about manufacturing something and is written for people who understand patternmaking and patternmaking diagrams and is not in any metaphorical sense.'

You're quoting me from #2645. Have you actually read the relevant post which is #2303? (and see also #2344)

[Herlock Sholmes]

Firstly, what you are doing here is taking the "industry" definition of one off and applying it to the 1904 article which you haven't read. Did you absorb everything I said about it? It's by no means clear that Garscadden is using the phrase to refer to something unique.

Secondly, there is nothing metaphorical in the reference to "one off standpoint". It just means looking at something from the standpoint of a one-off. It is completely different, therefore, to the expression "one off instance". There is no connection between the two.

Where is the difference, when it comes to being a believable, useable phrase or not, between a one that means 'a one off occasion' and one that means 'one off viewpoint?) This is surely nitpicking of an almost pathological extent?

[Herlock Sholmes]

You said: 'Either way I challenge anyone to say that here we have a clear use of one off to mean unique, although the distinction between the two is a fine line.'

Put simply:

If you intend to make one part now and expect to make another individual part at a later date - no drawing or pattern change required.

If you intend to make a unique part, never to be re-made - no drawing or pattern change required.

If you intend, at any time, to make large batches - drawing and pattern change required.

Therefore to make something from a 'one off standpoint' means point one or two.
There is no more evidence in Garscadden for the former over the latter or vice versa.
Therefore there is absolutely no reason to believe that he couldn't be discussing a unique item.

[Iconoclast]

Ike,

I can only throw myself at your feet and crave mercy and indulgence.
Graham

You had me at Hello in truth, Graham - eight years of hurt were quickly eradicated by a speculative Jack Grealish effort on 87 minutes which gave the mighty barcodes the Championship title. No more sobbing on the Tyne.

All is (and was) forgiven ...

[David Orsam]

Where is the difference, when it comes to being a believable, useable phrase or not, between a one that means 'a one off occasion' and one that means 'one off viewpoint?) This is surely nitpicking of an almost pathological extent?

No it's not nitpicking at all, it's fundamental to what I am saying. Just like the muppets in JTR Forums you seem to think that adding a word after "one off" is sufficient to create a metaphorical meaning. It doesn't. The same one would be true if Garscadden had referred to, say, a "one off example".

As you appreciate, Garscadden is always talking about a pattern for a part. When he refers to "one off standpoint" he is not comparing his pattern to anything else, thus using the pattern as a metaphor.

But look at the example from the Bee Journal that you mentioned earlier. In that quote, a person called Paddy was being called "a one off". We had reached a stage in 1976 where something (a one off) that was once only ever thought of as a pattern, a design, a manufactured item etc. is now being used to describe a human being.

In the Diary, it is being used to refer to an incident, the hitting, which will never happen again.

You cannot substitute "instance" for "standpoint" in the Diary. If the author had said, "sorry, it was a one off standpoint", it wouldn't work. It has no meaning. That's because the word "standpoint" does not create a metaphorical meaning for "one off".

That's the thing that didn't happen until the mid-twentieth century.