google ngrams

[rjpalmer]

It also acts like ‘outfoxed’, I believe?

To those who believe googling will provide an answer to the question of the antiquity of the diary, this should be worrying. ;-)

But Gary, we can be wiser than the tools we have, can't we? We can supplement the ngrams by our own searches through vast archives of journalism, for instance.

Is it impossible that Maybrick independently came up with "bumbling buffoon"? No. As Chris Phillips notes elsewhere, it is not impossible for Maybrick to have written "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah."

Ultimately, we all have to rely on commonsense. We can accept that Maybrick, in unidentifiable handwriting and damp ink, who repetitively fills the Diary with such brilliant insults as "whore" and "bitch," independently came up with "bumbling buffoon," and used it twice, even though there is no evidence it was in circulation in 1889, or even 1939.

Or we can conclude that it is highly suspicious that this exact insult was in circulation in 1992 when Barrett came forward with a diary from nowhere, and one that also retains the strange grammar of a police inventory list not available for public inspection until the 1980s.

I don't think it difficult to decide which explanation is preferable. And I don't think deliberate myopia is useful when analyzing a questioned document.

But Diary belief has always been about the willingness to accept 20 implausible explanations before breakfast.

[MrBarnett]

According to Ngram, ‘load of cobblers’ peaked in 2010.

[MrBarnett]

I created this thread on the Forums with my tongue firmly in my cheek, but it may be of interest/relevance here.

https://jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=33427&highlight=Cobblers

[MrBarnett]

Final one from me. Excuse my French, but I wanted to punch in an insult that is indisputably modern. A clusterf*ck. Either the person, or the event cause by the person. I think the result speaks for itself. It's hard not to see that 'bumbling buffoon' in no way behaves like other known insults (try poltroon, rapscallion, 'white-livered', or fussbudget) but does behave surprisingly similar to "couch potato" or "useful idiot."

To those who believe in the antiquity of the Diary, this should be worrying.

It also acts like ‘outfoxed’, I believe?

To those who believe googling will provide an answer to the question of the antiquity of the diary, this should be worrying. ;-)

[erobitha]

Google ngrams is notorious for transcrioption issues for earlier works. Refer to my previous article post on this thread with regards this problem, outlined in Wired magazine - a leading tech publictaion. Or just kep ignoring the problems with this type of tool.
https://www.wired.com/2015/10/pitfal...-google-ngram/

A nice example:

[rjpalmer]

Final one from me. Excuse my French, but I wanted to punch in an insult that is indisputably modern. A clusterf*ck. Either the person, or the event cause by the person. I think the result speaks for itself. It's hard not to see that 'bumbling buffoon' in no way behaves like other known insults (try poltroon, rapscallion, 'white-livered', or fussbudget) but does behave surprisingly similar to "couch potato" or "useful idiot."

To those who believe in the antiquity of the Diary, this should be worrying.

[rjpalmer]

I find this one interesting. "Dunderhead." It evidently originated in the mid-18th Century, was popular, died down, but kept its life until recent times. Again, I think the uptick after 2000 is an error. The ngram isn't giving us an accurate representation of its current popularity...that, or it's made a comeback.

[rjpalmer]

Here's one for "scapegrace."

[rjpalmer]

Thinking it over, it seems to me that insults, such as "bumbling buffoon," tend to be 'slangy' and trendy. They come and go, spring up and die out. I thought it might be useful to punch in a few other recognizable insults and see how they behave over time, using the ngram software.

Here's one for the obsolete "ninnyhammer." (I expanded the graph so it dates back to 1700, instead of 1800).


One thing I've noticed in doing several of these is that we are getting what I believe are false hits after the year 2000 because so many recent eBooks are skewing the results. And are reprints of old texts being attributed to the right timeframe?

[Joshua Rogan]

Wasn't it George Grossmith Junior, not senior, who starred in The Shop Girl?

[Scott Nelson]

Come to think of it, I may have read it somewhere in Bruce Robinson's book as well. I lent it out so I (conveniently) can't double check.

[Scott Nelson]

I saw it on one of the Gilbert & Sullivan web pages, but I can't find it now. Michael was described as a baritone singer and was with the play for over a year with Grossmith.

[caz]

Hi Scotty,

Do you have a source for Michael Maybrick's involvement in The Shop Girl?

I can't immediately find a reference.

I have long believed that the Grossmiths would have looked down their noses at the jumped-up Michael 'Stephen Adams' Maybrick, and - in a different universe - would have thought it a jolly wheeze to wind up this crashing bore with a hoax diary, planted in Battlecrease House naturally, implying that his own brother - arsenic eating, adulterous, brothel creeping, American loving cotton man - had been murdering prostitutes in Whitechapel, when not entertaining his 'other woman' in Stepney, while ostensibly paying duty visits to his celebrity sibling. You could imagine the hilarity and mischief caused if some Alice Yapp type underling had found such a spoof diary and it had been brought to Michael's attention. Of course, there would have been no way to ensure this would happen in Michael's lifetime, or even in the Grossmiths', but hoaxes don't always play out as the hoaxer intended. The thought of Michael, or anyone connected with the family, reading it and going purple with apoplexy, in spite of it being an obvious hoax, would have been enough.

Love,

Caz
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[Scott Nelson]

And don't forget Caroline, George (as an actor) and Michael (as a musician) both appeared in The Shop Girl together throughout most of its run in the UK. The play was written by Sims (?) - no, by Dam.

[caz]

Lunch hour RJ? Is that when the nurses dish out the shaped puree?

Girl next door is a good example, it seems to date to the cinema era, worth some exploration. " Bumbling" as in fool, and "buffoon" as in , well, buffoon, are really common terms, well established. But, (and that's all italic and underlined) not together. That's key here, every other anachronism is disputed based on interpretations of what was printed at the time. We could do the same here, well, we can with the two words taken independently, they weren't uncommon, but not in sequence. Would have the term have been understandable to an LVP reader / writer? Not inconceivable. But is it backed up by the historical record? Not as of yet. So, regardless of whether it kills the diary (again), look at it as a lesson in the use of language. What is a relevant gap in the use and recording of language? Now, I get, if a term was in use but not physically recorded, how do you determine it wasn't in use prior to recording? Well, you don't. But that's not proof either, is it? We're just going off records.

But a good record could be out there (that's not from a bee keeping journal) waiting to shoot this down. Early days folks. Early days.

Hi Al,

I wondered if there could have been a 'bumbling buffoon' alongside the 'double event' to be found within the pages of The Diary of a Nobody, first appearing in Punch in 1888, but this was all I came up with just now. Close, but definitely no cigar:

https://bluecrowx.wordpress.com/2010...y-of-a-nobody/

'The protagonist – Mr.Pooter, is a bumbling buffoon caught between an aspiration to the higher rungs of society, an inconsiderate circle of friends and family, and complete with the utter inability to grapple with any fashionable trends.'


'A clumsy man not noticing it, had his foot on it for ever so long before he discovered it. ... He marched twice round the room like a buffoon...'

'Bumbling Charles Pooter's memoir of timeless suburban angst The Diary of a Nobody (1892) remains remarkably modern and amusing even a century after it ...'

'In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter, the Grossmith brothers created a wonderful portrait of the class system and the inherent ...'

'But for those who've read George Grossmith's novel, the fictional diary entries of the bumbling social-climber serialised by Punch in 1888, ...'

'Buy The Diary of a Nobody (Penguin Classics) New Ed by Grossmith, George, ... In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter, the ...'


In my book Beer and Skittles, from 1977, I recently read the following reference, in the context of London gin-palaces:

'The original customers must have been people like Lupin Pooter, the alarmingly modern son in The Diary of a Nobody.'


The interesting thing I learned about the Grossmith brothers some years ago is that they were into Victorian hoaxes and moved in the same social circle as the Maybrick brothers in London. George - Gee Gee - spent his honeymoon in Aigburth, Liverpool, of all places, while Weedon - Wee Gee - knew George Sims personally through their shared interest in crimes and criminals, and Melville Macnaghten had a portrait of Weedon, playing Jack Sheppard, hanging on the wall of his office.

Yes I know, I'm still clutching at silly straws, but I do find such parallels intriguing, even if there is no possible connection with the diary of the nobody who was James Maybrick until his death turned him into a somebody - a macabre cause celebre.

Love,

Caz
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