Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes
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Just in case anyone hadn’t seen it David has posted this article on his website.
And no, I’m not David’s publicity agent
And no, I’m not David’s publicity agent
Firstly, I do not have unlimited time on my hands so I still haven't reviewed his various analyses - I will set aside time to do so in the near future and will incorporate any points he makes which I feel are significant into the brilliant Society's Pillar. Clearly, this will inevitably reduce some of the intensity of that brilliance, but that's his life's burden not mine. It is unfortunate that I have to carry it for him, but there you are. He has a big head, but fortunately for him I have a big heart and I am willing to accommodate his limited research into my magnus opium. Not a problem, but he will need to be patient. As his Numero One-o nemesis, I feel he will want to give me the time I need, although I do get dizzy moving my head left and right so often when reading his work so if he could widen his margins, that would be most helpful.
Secondly, as my three fans will testify, for many years I have good-naturedly carried the flame for the Maybrick scrapbook. I've taken a lot of flak along the way, and borne the scars heroically. And that was before the good Lord Orsam appeared on the scene with his sack full of Mechanics for Beginners books! Ordinarily, I let the criticism roll off me (the transcendental meditation and the sherry help), but on this occasion, I feel compelled to challenge LO's comments regarding my reference to "off-instance". I haven't once intended my devoted readers to imagine that I actually imagine there ever to have been an expression "off-instance". I insert the hyphen purely to add stress in the right place. I probably should have typed "'off' instance" but that does feel more clumsy than "off-instance". That said, it has clearly confused His Lordship when I have done so so I feel the need to correct the situation. For clarity, then, I do not doubt for a moment that the obvious interpretation of "one off instance" is as we would know it today. Not an issue. Where it becomes an issue is where possible alternatives are wilfully excluded in order to further an argument. It is true (though I hadn't recalled it) that I do not mention this in Society's Pillar, and it is true that there is an element of tongue-in-cheek when I raise it (when is there not?, I hear you all chime), but - tongue-in-cheek aside - it is possible (however implausibly so you may feel that is) that James Maybrick wrote "a … one … 'off' … instance" in his private journal, to himself, not caring too much if it was particularly literate. There is no evidence that he used the term "one off instance" to Florrie. It is perfectly likely that he simply said "I promise it won't happen again" and then when writing about it wrote to the effect of "I told her that it would be a … [a what?] … one … [damn, what do I mean?] … [erm] … 'off' … instance". If the two words 'one' and 'off' were linked with a hyphen, then this possibility would be negated, but the author didn't so we are left with the possibility - however obscure - that it is simply a poorly-constructed sentence which Maybrick did not care to cross out and correct.
Thirdly, the fact that 'one-off' was a mechanical term used at least as long ago as the early 20th century does not necessarily preclude the parallel use of the term to mean a single event (in the way we now know it). The two uses of the term may have had a common ancestor and their respective branches may not have had long to separate, but it is perfectly possible that there were two uses of the expression in 1888. So the fact that there are no mentions of 'one-off' in obscure trade journals before 1900 does not necessarily mean that it wasn't being used in its other context in everyday speech or in written documents and letters in 1888 or - for all we know - earlier than that. The obvious question is why has David Orsam not found the expression used in this context in his exhaustive review of 19th century published literature? Well, perhaps his review isn't entirely exhaustive. And perhaps the use of it was in written form and those documents and letters are now long destroyed. I don't know whether this is true or not, but I am not willing to accept that he has provided an incontrovertible fact which refutes the scrapbook until such time as we are more certain that the expression could not have been used in 1888 by a businessman who had spent long periods of time in America. The day may come when we have to accept that 'one off instance' simply could not have been written in 1888 by such a person, and when we reach that point (after we've discussed it for twenty minutes), we will all agree that Ol' Big Head was right all along.
Ike
Ironiclast
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