One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Jessica Pisces]

The June 2009 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary has the earliest printed reference to that meaning in the Daily Mirror of the 15th of March 1976, John.

The problem lies in the original use of the word in headlines about stories with more than just physical violence. Is the average reader supposed to know that the headline above only refers to the nose-biting? Most people would not disassociate chaos and maiming.

Don't you think mayhem was a loaded word to use for a nose-biting incident?
It only makes sense to me if John Dunn was a Celtic Scot. Mayday! Mayday!

[John Hacker]

The problem lies in the original use of the word in headlines about stories with more than just physical violence. Is the average reader supposed to know that the headline above only refers to the nose-biting? Most people would not disassociate chaos and maiming.

Don't you think mayhem was a loaded word to use for a nose-biting incident?
It only makes sense to me if John Dunn was a Celtic Scot. Mayday! Mayday!

It seems to me that the usage is exactly consistent what we would expect for the period. Biting off someones nose would certainly be maiming. And it was Attempted Mayhem, the nose removal was unsuccessful. If it were used in the current fashion it would certainly be mayhem accomplished. Few things cause disorder and chaos as effectively as someone going for another guys nose with his teeth.

It's possible that there is a usage in a period paper with a more modern usage, but I have never seen one and from the references cited here it looks like I am not alone. If you can find any more references I would really like to see them.

John

[Jessica Pisces]

The same San Francisco newspaper has another article with a MAYHEM headline by the same author. The reporter turns out to be none other than Mark Twain.

The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, August 31, 1864
MAYHEM

"Gentle Julia," who spends eleven months of each year in the County Jail, on an average, bit a joint clear off one of the fingers of Joanna O'Hara, (an old offender - chicken thief,) in the "dark cell" in the station-house yesterday. The other women confined there say that is the way Gentle Julia always fights.

[caz]

Hi Jessica, All,

I find it quite ironic that people are having such difficulty with this one, when it's as plain as the nose that the ripper hacked off Kate Eddowes's face, in the process of inflicting merry mayhem on yet another woman he found at random on the streets of Whitechapel.

When coupled with the NODE reference that SPE found, to a late 19th century use of mayhem to mean chaos or disorder, the creator of 'Sir Jim' comes across as someone at the cutting edge of LVP vernacular and the latest Americanisms, and indeed as sharp as the knife that 'Sir Jim' had in his hand, in the line of doggerel immediately preceding his mayhem spreading.

My daughter has a KCL OED online facility, so she was able to find mayhem used as a verb here:

'Now arch. and rare.

trans. To inflict mayhem or physical injury on (a person); to maim. Also fig.
1743 Public Rec. Colony of Connecticut (1874) VIII. 579 For that he..did feloniously mayhem the body of one Thomas Allyn. 1879 A. W. TOURGÉE Fool's Errand (1883) xxxix. 251 To buy, to sell, to task, to whip, to mayhem this race at will.'

It's the compound phrase 'spreads Mayhem' [sic - from This May spreads Mayhem] that Sam Flynn considered the smoking modern gun, arguing that it had to have entered the average person's everyday usage (but presumably with a lower case m for mayhem) before anyone would have thought of using it in the diary. But there's a slight problem with this, because it now appears that the phrase was a rarity in print in the late 1980s too, and didn't really start to take off in a purely modern sense until two years after the diary emerged.

So the idea that it was a phrase on everyone's lips down the local, when the Barretts of Goldie Street were supposedly getting their act together, is looking rather unlikely, as is any idea that even a basic dictionary was consulted when composing the diary text, never mind the latest OED concerning Victorian usage.

But if one was able to 'mayhem' a whole race at will in 1879 (in the physical injury sense), then whoever created 'Sir Jim' - and when - was perfectly entitled, in a literary sense, to have him spread his own mayhem around at will in 1888.

Love,

Caz
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[John Hacker]

Heya Caz,

It's the compound phrase 'spreads Mayhem' [sic - from This May spreads Mayhem] that Sam Flynn considered the smoking modern gun, arguing that it had to have entered the average person's everyday usage (but presumably with a lower case m for mayhem) before anyone would have thought of using it in the diary. But there's a slight problem with this, because it now appears that the phrase was a rarity in print in the late 1980s too, and didn't really start to take off in a purely modern sense until two years after the diary emerged.

I think Sam hit the nail on the head here. Mayhem as "chaos" was certainly in common use long before a modern forger would have put pen to ink.

As a sanity check I did an IMDB quote search.

"Reaction of law enforcement officials is one of complete bewilderment at this hour. Police and sheriff's deputies and emergency ambulances are literally deluded with calls for help. The scene can be best described as mayhem." - Night of the Living Dead (1968)

"There's nothing like a little bit of mayhem to cheer one up." - Slueth (1982)

And of course by 1979 the word was coupled with chaos enough that Floyd Pepper's band in the Muppet Movie was "The Electric Mayhem". Although the Muppets did have a small undercurrent of dark humor occasionally I can't imagine that if mayhem were still strongly linked with mutilation/maiming that it would have been used in a kids film.

So the idea that it was a phrase on everyone's lips down the local, when the Barretts of Goldie Street were supposedly getting their act together, is looking rather unlikely, as is any idea that even a basic dictionary was consulted when composing the diary text, never mind the latest OED concerning Victorian usage.

Looks pretty likely to me. There were another half dozen references in the 1980s.

But if one was able to 'mayhem' a whole race at will in 1879 (in the physical injury sense), then whoever created 'Sir Jim' - and when - was perfectly entitled, in a literary sense, to have him spread his own mayhem around at will in 1888.

I don't think that holds up Caz... the choice of the word "spread" pretty much precludes the idea that mayhem is used in an injury sense. You don't "spread" murder, multilation or maiming. For someone in 1888 to use the word in that way and then have it coupled with a word that it actually makes sense with 60+ years later is a bit of a stretch IMO.

So as far as I can tell there is no reason to believe that the word mayhem was used in a modern sense in 1888 and it's clear that it was in fact available for a modern forger.

John

[caz]

Hi John,

But if someone's burglaries can be spread around a certain area, with no difficulty whatsoever, why can't other offences, such as murders, or acts of mayhem, in the traditional sense of inflicting actual bodily mutilation?

And Sam's argument was that it's the compound phrase - 'spreads mayhem' - that is a modernism, whereby the mayhem can only mean confusion/panic/disruption etc, and that therefore this must be how it was used in the diary. But it turns out that this particular compound phrase is too much of a modernism even for a modern hoaxer, as it was a rarity in the late 1980s and only began to take off from 1994, two years after the diary emerged. Only two earlier instances of mayhem being 'spread' in this thoroughly modern manner have been found to my knowledge, one from 1988, the other from 1992.

Someone had 'Sir Jim' use this compound phrase well before 1994 (the best the ink and paper scientists have come up with so far is 'prior to 1970') and we also have that NODE reference to mayhem meaning chaos or disorder by the late 19th century. So our hoaxer has managed to cover all bases.

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

But it turns out that this particular compound phrase is too much of a modernism even for a modern hoaxer, as it was a rarity in the late 1980s and only began to take off from 1994, two years after the diary emerged.

The fact that it appears in print on those dates indicate that it was very probably in vernacular usage for longer, Caz. Bear in mind that its close relative, "causing mayhem" (in the "non-violent" sense), crops up fairly often in the late 1960s, and - if memory serves me right - it appears in the Times in 1977.

[Robert]

A Google book search for "spread mayhem" throws up a few 1980s/early90s references. There is also a reference in "Curiosities of Literature" by Isaac Disraeli, 1893, but I can't open it.

[Sam Flynn]

There is also a reference in "Curiosities of Literature" by Isaac Disraeli, 1893, but I can't open it.

I found that one previously, Robert, and it's evidently an OCR misread for the words "may seem". The correct text, and context, follows:

The Loves of the Lady Arabella, from "Curiosities of Literature" (Isaac Disraeli), p.283:

The time pressed ; the waves were rising ; Arabella was not there ; but in the distance he descried a vessel. Hiring a fisherman to take him on board, to his grief, on hailing it, he discovered that it was not the French vessel charged with his Arabella. In despair and confusion, he found another ship from Newcastle, which for a good sum altered its course, and landed him in Flanders. In the meanwhile, the escape of Arabella was first known to government ; and the hot alarm which spread may seem ludicrous to us.

[Sam Flynn]

A Google book search for "spread mayhem" throws up a few 1980s/early90s references.

I posted a graph of "hits" on specific Diary phrases as found during a survey of Google Books, Rob, which you may have seen on Howard's site. Here's an image of my spreadsheet containing the raw data from that survey, from which you'll note that there's a veritable "explosion" in the use of these phrases, from around the latter third of the 20th Century:



I checked each "hit" to make sure that there weren't any errors of transcription, and that the phrases were being used in the correct way (e.g. "top myself/herself/himself" scores many hits, but usually in the context of "better myself/herself/himself", rather than in the "suicide" sense.)

As I've said before, I don't pretend the above is definitive, but as it's based on over 7 million scanned texts it should give at least an indication of the penetration of these phrases into the vernacular.

[Robert]

Thanks Gareth, I missed all that, since I rarely wander into the Maybrick threads - or should I say, I rarely frequent them.

[caz]

Hi Sam,

Well my point remains then, that your silly modern faker, despite the execrable English that you believe - with no evidence - has to represent his/her very best efforts (even though he/she would clearly not have been writing as him/herself, but as a thoroughly demonised, warts and all version of a borderline working class Victorian merchant, displaying every fault under the sun, including that execrable English), appears to have been very much at the cutting edge of late 1980s vernacular, and this new pre-internet 'mayhem spreading' phenomenon, when composing the text.

This doesn't sit too well with what is known about the only individuals 'in the loop' of potential modern suspects.

And in any case, as I've said before, your task is not to demonstrate how someone could have written this text in the late 1980s (despite the scientists' collective best guess of 'prior to 1970'), but how it could not have been written by anyone a hundred years previously, using mayhem in a different sense from the one you are subjectively imposing on your thoroughly modern, pub frequenting dictionary dodger.

Once again, in order to 'mayhem' a whole race at will, in the bodily mutilation sense (1879, online OED), it's self-evident that this would involve a massive spread of mayhem, on a scale that could only have made poor old Sir Jim weep at his own impotence.

Come on, Sam. You can do better than this.

It takes a smart man to prove, to the satisfaction of his peers, what he thinks he knows.

It takes a great man to admit that he only thought he knew, and may have waded in too deep too soon.

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

It takes a great man to admit that he only thought he knew, and may have waded in too deep too soon.

I genuinely don't think I have, Caz. To illustrate why I feel that way, here's a (different) graph showing the Google-Books hits from the survey I mentioned above:



I've thrown in "causes mayhem" (in the "creates confusion" sense) just for good measure. That cluster of phrases, together with their frequency over time, can be seen as a "cone of probability", if you like - or at least a "cone of word-frequency". The most reasonable conclusion, based on the above, is surely that the Diary was almost certainly written in the latter quarter of the 20th Century.

[John Hacker]

I have just joined this site and find it most interesting. I did so because I have just read the book by Mr. Feldman and found it a remarkable piece of detective work, although some points that he makes seem to me a bit contrived. Is there somewhere here where there is a discussion on Feldman and his book that I can join?

I don't think there's currently an ongoing discussion specific to Feldman's book. Most threads are covering individual points and will reference Feldman, Harrison, Skinner/Linder/Morris or anything else appropriate. But if there's anything that particularly interests you feel free to add on to an existing thread or start a new one if there's no thread that covers it.

And welcome to the Casebook!

[caz]

I've thrown in "causes mayhem" (in the "creates confusion" sense) just for good measure. That cluster of phrases, together with their frequency over time, can be seen as a "cone of probability", if you like - or at least a "cone of word-frequency". The most reasonable conclusion, based on the above, is surely that the Diary was almost certainly written in the latter quarter of the 20th Century.

Hi Sam,

But I and others (including my newly qualified linguistics specialist, Carly ) have already explained to you elsewhere precisely why anything based on Google-Books is not going to give you any remotely reliable answers. So why would you spread the offence by repeating it over here?

The only reliable information we have is the context in which 'Sir Jim' was thinking of spreading his 'Mayhem' [with that highly significant capital M]. It was with the knife in his hand, and in the course of a daft bit of doggerel his creator had him compose, in the run up to the double event, when the real killer would once again be committing very real 1888-style mayhem out on the streets, this time spreading his work over into the City.

Moreover, ‘Sir Jim’ didn’t use the expression ‘cause mayhem’ in any sense, so including it in a modern ‘create confusion’ sense isn’t for 'good' measure at all, but purely a self-serving one to give your modern silver bullet the artificial boost it evidently needs. Modern hoax theorists are forever accusing others of this kind of special pleading, yet you have been more guilty than anyone over this trifling spread of 'Mayhem'.

Once again, even if we took your graph and ran with it, the very paucity of 'spread mayhem' examples (and to a lesser extent 'top myself' and 'one off') in the 1980s makes it doubtful in the extreme, according to your own argument, that using any of these expressions would, as you maintain, have been ‘second nature’ [= ‘deeply ingrained habit or tendency’] to anyone living in the vicinity of Goldie Street at that time and mixing with Mike Barrett, who was unemployed and could invariably be found down the Saddle on weekday afternoons with a couple of like-minded characters, idly supping a pint while waiting to collect his daughter from the school opposite.

The idea of anything as cutting edge as your graph suggests all three diary expressions were in the 1980s coming as 'second nature' to Mike Barrett and chums is really out there, I’m afraid. I've been in the Saddle and done the walk from Goldie Street and back (admittedly only a few years ago) and it's not exactly a 'happening' place. You’d be miles better off with the same argument you used against anyone putting a 'new' expression in the diary in the LVP, before it was on everyone's lips and in everyday speech. If your uneducated modern hoaxer was supposed to be bunging in the expressions you have highlighted as 'second nature', you'd better hope that they had been doing the rounds for decades in conversation, in order to reach Mike's cronies in time to do their dirty work.

What your graph takes no account of, to the peril of your whole argument, is the fact that slang terms in general would have started to be seen more in print anyway from around the same time you start seeing these specific expressions cropping up, ie from the middle of the 20th century onwards. Slang has always been with us, and was never the preserve of the great unwashed in any case. I doubt that its use in everyday conversation increased significantly from the 1960s onwards, despite your misgivings about the lowering of education standards. What you are seeing here is likely to be a reflection of the dramatic increase in the same period of the use of the vernacular, and all manner of slang expressions, in the printed word. Much of what is considered acceptable, or second nature, to put in writing in our modern times, would simply not have found its way into the vast majority of pre-1960 publications, and even fewer the further you go back towards Victorian times.

Statistics can bite back if you miss what they may actually be demonstrating, in your eagerness to read into them something they are not.

Love,

Caz
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