One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[MrBarnett]

"Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off"


This is one example of the lazy writing we find all over the scrapbook, the hoaxer didn't add any depth to the historic fact, no details, no meanings, nothing there, it is empty, shallow and fruitless.


Imagine a scholar of the case or an historian who spent some +30 years studying the case reading this scrapbook and this sentence for the first time, he would say to himself:


- Ahaaa now I know why the Ripper cut Eddowes nose, because it annoyed him!


I wouldn't ask for more than this to deem this a hoax, and a cheap one for that.




The Baron

I say this without any support from ngrams or anything else, but the use of ‘annoyed’ rather than ‘offended’ or ‘irritated’ sounds modern.

[Iconoclast]

"Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off"

This is one example of the lazy writing we find all over the scrapbook, the hoaxer didn't add any depth to the historic fact, no details, no meanings, nothing there, it is empty, shallow and fruitless.

Imagine a scholar of the case or an historian who spent some +30 years studying the case reading this scrapbook and this sentence for the first time, he would say to himself:

- Ahaaa now I know why the Ripper cut Eddowes nose, because it annoyed him

I wouldn't ask for more than this to deem this a hoax, and a cheap one for that.

The Baron

Goodness me, what a lack of logic!

As James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, he didn't need to explain any more than that. He knew why her nose annoyed him!

I doubt he wrote it and then stopped and thought "I wonder if I've made that clear or detailed enough to me?".

It's such a poor argument, it just reeks of insincerity.

[StevenOwl]

"Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off"


This is one example of the lazy writing we find all over the scrapbook, the hoaxer didn't add any depth to the historic fact, no details, no meanings, nothing there, it is empty, shallow and fruitless.

Oscar and BAFTA nominated screen writer Bruce Robinson thinks the complete opposite - I believe he said that if he'd written the Diary he'd consider it the apex of his writing career. What's your writing pedigree?

[rjpalmer]

It’s not phrase, though, is it, Yabs. It’s just two words that fit comfortably together - then as now.

I'm starting to wonder whether you even believe your own arguments, Gary, or whether it's just a wind-up.

Of course two words can be a phrase. There's thousands of them. "Trust yourself." "Complete idiot." "Stay tuned." "Put down." "Wind-up." "One off."

Or are you seriously suggesting that every time someone couples two words together they are independently creating the connection--as if for the first time--rather than just repeating something they've already heard---something that is already in wide circulation?

(There's another one: wide circulation)

Is that how language works? Spontaneous acts of instant creation?

If so, it's really quite amazing that all these people independently came up with the same idea to couple "bungling" and "buffoon" between 1950-2020, but you still can't demonstrate that anyone came up with it during the Victorian or Edwardian era:






It's baffling. I can think of no explanation.

[erobitha]

If so, it's really quite amazing that all these people independently came up with the same idea to couple "bungling" and "buffoon" between 1950-2020, but you still can't demonstrate that anyone came up with it during the Victorian or Edwardian era:

It's baffling. I can think of no explanation.

Typographical Journal, Volumes 12-13 (1898)
Page 460

[The Baron]

Typographical Journal, Volumes 12-13 (1898)
Page 460

He meant to write "Bumbling" and "Buffoon"

Didn't you even see the examples he posted!

But I take it that you are one of many who failed the challenge to find "Bumbling Buffoon" being used in the 19th century.

And that of course proves that this poor diary is a modern hoax.




The Baron

[erobitha]

He meant to write "Bumbling" and "Buffoon"

Didn't you even see the examples he posted!

But I take it that you are one of many who failed the challenge to find "Bumbling Buffoon" being used in the 19th century.

And that of course proves that this poor diary is a modern hoax.




The Baron

Maybe Maybrick had meant to write Bungling Buffoon, and like RJ got his words confused.

Some people are human.

[The Baron]

Maybe Maybrick had meant to write Bungling Buffoon, and like RJ got his words confused.

Some people are human.

Except that he wrote it "bumbling buffoon" twice!





Keep digging!




The Baron

[The Baron]

Some people are human.

So some people are human, that means others are not human, and that means Jack the Ripper belongs to the human part of people!


Amazing!




The Baron

[MrBarnett]

Typographical Journal, Volumes 12-13 (1898)
Page 460

A Victorian came up with ‘bungling buffoon’, but it is absolutely impossible that another Victorian could have come up with ‘bumbling buffoon’?

What does ngrams say about ‘bungling buffoon’?

[erobitha]

A Victorian came up with ‘bungling buffoon’, but it is absolutely impossible that another Victorian could have come up with ‘bumbling buffoon’?

What does ngrams say about ‘bungling buffoon’?

Ngrams is saying "Bungling Buffoon" was used as early as 1854.



it must be absolutely impossible for anyone to use "Bumbling" and "Buffoon" combined in everyday language in 1888. Thirty years after documented use of "Bungling Buffoon".

[The Baron]

Within some 10 lines of this forgery we have "Bumbling Buffoon" and "One off instance"

!!!


Yes, it is impossible.





The Baron

[MrBarnett]

I'm starting to wonder whether you even believe your own arguments, Gary, or whether it's just a wind-up.

Of course two words can be a phrase. There's thousands of them. "Trust yourself." "Complete idiot." "Stay tuned." "Put down." "Wind-up." "One off."

Or are you seriously suggesting that every time someone couples two words together they are independently creating the connection--as if for the first time--rather than just repeating something they've already heard---something that is already in wide circulation?

(There's another one: wide circulation)

Is that how language works? Spontaneous acts of instant creation?

If so, it's really quite amazing that all these people independently came up with the same idea to couple "bungling" and "buffoon" between 1950-2020, but you still can't demonstrate that anyone came up with it during the Victorian or Edwardian era:






It's baffling. I can think of no explanation.

No wind up, RJ.

This started as one, but ended up being quite interesting:

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/british-experience/down-memory-lane/34107-a-load-of-old-cobblers

[Iconoclast]

'Bungling Buffoon' was an excellent spot, ero b (in the screenshot you posted) and it's interesting that it appeared from time to time in the limited number of texts which Google Ngrams has managed to OCR from the Victorian period. Obviously, as we get closer to the modern age, all expressions will appear more often because more modern texts will be more likely to be available to Google Ngrams. That's just obvious. If it wasn't, we would have Ngrams going right back to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Tongue in cheek there but I think the point is valid. We're obviously going to get more examples of an expression which has persisted down the generations as we approach our own. The only exception would be if certain phrases and words were simply falling-off in use anyway.

If 'Bungling Buffoon' was an expression at least as early as 1854, it's not hard to imagine James Maybrick misrepresenting it as 'bumbling buffoon' in his scrapbook. But he did that twice in the same scrapbook - shock, hoax, Big Reveal! You know what, if you think the expression 'bungling buffoon' is actually 'bumbling buffoon' and you use it in your personal jotter then you are very likely to do so every time you use that malaprop (it's not actually a malapropism, of course, as both 'bungling' and 'bumbling' give context to 'buffoon'). How many of us correct ourselves when we say "If you think I'm going to do that, you've got another thing coming"? That will be no-one, then. In everyday use, 'think' morphs into 'thing' but when those thoughts go down into print, editors and their teams spot them and correct them so that 'think' appears when 'thing' was incorrectly intended. So Ngrams picks up the printed correction and Lord assumes that the 'error' is uncommon or even non-existent.

I just keep coming back to the fraught issue of all those Victorians (and Edwardians and Georgians) who did not enjoy the health benefits of freshly-picked carrots because they were only created for the first time in 1947.



Ike
A Man who Knows his Carrots ()

[Iconoclast]

It's really interesting that the 'sudden', unstoppable, exponential use of 'one-off instance' in Ngrams after 1982 or so rather pales into context when you put it into context with 'one-off' alone. Obviously, 'one-off' does not make it back to the start of the 20th century (despite being used in technical journals) which is a bit weird and makes Ngrams look rather faulty but we'll overlook that problem for the sake of this argument.

Now, I'd be the first to agree with Voldemort's Shadow that James Maybrick's use of 'one off instance' does smack on the surface as someone using a type of expression which does not seem to have been commonplace in 1888 (that is, an event which is singular and individual). Where I would have to differ from him (and in so many other ways, obviously!) is that this is clearly not a categorical proof of a hoax. That would take a bit more than an expression we think was never previously used, or a godmother lazily or ignorantly referred to as an 'aunt'.