google ngrams

[Iconoclast]

As I said before, if it was so obvious, the doctors and police would have made note of it.

As for your other questions, I can't answer them. We'd have to reach out to the spirit of Harry Dam.

I wonder how the autopsy report describes it. I will check.

[Yabs]

Hello everyone.
Out of interest....

“I will not play my funny little games on my own doorstep”

When did the phrase “my own doorstep” become metaphor to mean a hometown or area, rather than a literal reference to your doorstep?

I’m not sure if it sounds “Old”, but perhaps it is.

[rjpalmer]

I'd say that the side wall was perfectly 'in front' in terms of visibility. Once again, you seek a literal version of events where a nuanced one is more than adequate.

Well, we've finally arrived at rock bottom. Up is down, right is left, ignorance is strength. The wall behind and to the side of Kelly is "the front." It is more "nuanced" to refer to it as the front, even though it's behind her.

Diarythink. You gotta love it!

I'm open to being corrected on this but my - albeit 'vague' (in the true sense of the word) - understanding is that defensive wounds tend to be to the hands and lower arms and tend to be straight cuts (obviously from the knife the victim is being attacked with). Defensive wounds do not consist of large chunks of flesh torn from the body and forming a very obvious letter 'F'. Like rivulets of blood on bedroom walls, defensive wounds are simply not that articulate.

I've already posted you an image, Ike, very similar to what we see in the Kelly crime scene, showing that the wounds to the back of Kelly's forearm were explainable as defensive wounds seen in knife attacks.

Sigh. I'll post it again, but after that you're on your own. I don't have time to keep holding your hand, Ike.



And here's another:


Note the caption: "Multiple cuts on the left forearm and hand sustained when trying to ward off a knife attack against the neck."

In other words, the victim wraps his/her arm around his/her neck to protect it.

And, as we know, Kelly's neck was cut while her heart was still pumping, leaving the arterial spray on the sidewall, as described by Dr. Bond. There was no 'F.M.' nor 'F', other than what can be seen by your own imagination, Ike.

Of course, a more "nuanced" interpretation might be that the killer in the above photographs was attempting to carve Arabic lettering in the victim's flesh. But I think not.

That's all for now, Ike. I'll see you in another two or three weeks.

--The Bongo Believer.

[Scott Nelson]

You know, if you really look, you can see a "3" carved into Kelly's forehead. It's not really there, but it looks like one.

[Iconoclast]

Well, we've finally arrived at rock bottom. Up is down, right is left, ignorance is strength. The wall behind and to the side of Kelly is "the front." It is more "nuanced" to refer to it as the front, even though it's behind her.
Diarythink. You gotta love it!

To all the young and upcoming Ripperologists out there who are learning their trade, take note: here is a prime example of a heavily-biased argument. If you stood in Kelly's room surveying the mess that used to be Mary Kelly, you would probably have stood where the cameraman stood when he took his infamous photograph. It wasn't the largest of rooms so there wouldn't have been many alternative places to stand so we can probably assume that the killer also stood there at some point, perhaps admiring the devastation he had caused. Now, if that was the case, can anyone (other than those for whom there must be a negative to every proposal supporting James Maybrick as Jack the Ripper) say that he would not have considered his wife's initials on Kelly's wall to be "in front for all to see"?

I leave it to the individual reader to decide (and if they concur with me, they may then go further and decide what it might be that would cause someone to make the rather contrived and desperate argument that it should be see as otherwise).

From Lacassagne, where it all began:

[Iconoclast]

You know, if you really look, you can see a "3" carved into Kelly's forehead. It's not really there, but it looks like one.

So illustrating that you may be able to see something but you don't actually believe it is literally intended to be there is not the same as showing that things can be intended to be there and can be seen.

I don't therefore understand the point you were seeking to make there.

[Iconoclast]

Well, we've finally arrived at rock bottom. Up is down, right is left, ignorance is strength. The wall behind and to the side of Kelly is "the front." It is more "nuanced" to refer to it as the front, even though it's behind her.

Diarythink. You gotta love it!

I've already posted you an image, Ike, very similar to what we see in the Kelly crime scene, showing that the wounds to the back of Kelly's forearm were explainable as defensive wounds seen in knife attacks.

Sigh. I'll post it again, but after that you're on your own. I don't have time to keep holding your hand, Ike.

In other words, the victim wraps his/her arm around his/her neck to protect it.

Yes, I knew you had posted images before which is why I deliberately used the term "lower arm" to illustrate that defensive wounds will occur mainly on the hands and lower arms. The images you posted were very much of the lower arm variety. I have no doubt that you will find upper arm versions, but let me save you the effort: as you believe that Kelly's wounds were defensive wounds, then Lacassagne's infamous photograph provides the example of which you would be seeking.

I don't think the 'F' on Kelly's arm - almost up at her elbow - was a defensive wound and - if it were - I would definitely be asking why it was so localised and not widespread up and down her arm and hand.

I have The Ultimate Sourcebook before me and I am about to seek answers to whether the coroner felt that Kelly was still alive and conscious when the blade struck her. I don't recall that argument having been made. It was my understanding that the evidence pointing to Jack subduing his victims by strangling them either to death or at very least unconsciousness at which point the cutting and ripping could begin.

But I'm sure that you are correct. I have no doubt that I will soon read the coroner's report and find that evidence exists of a desperate struggle between Kelly and killer as she fought desperately for her life.

I wonder why she didn't scream violently to alert her neighbours? I guess the coroner's report will suggest that her throat was cut first and she couldn't speak.

[Iconoclast]

And, as we know, Kelly's neck was cut while her heart was still pumping, leaving the arterial spray on the sidewall, as described by Dr. Bond. There was no 'F.M.' nor 'F', other than what can be seen by your own imagination, Ike.

Just my imagination? Really? I'm the only person who has ever seen the 'F' and the 'M' on Kelly's wall and been satisfied that rivulets of blood running down a wall after been sprayed there by the cut of a knife could not be so spontaneously - and coincidentally - articulate?

The Maybrick scrapbook quite clearly indicates that the letters 'F' and 'M' are to be found in Kelly's room, and - lo - they are found on Kelly's wall, together, similar height, and in the correct order. This miracle is inconclusive because ... because what? Because it's bloody inconvenient?

[rjpalmer]

I wonder why she didn't scream violently to alert her neighbours?

She did. At the inquest, two neighbors independently reported hearing a scream in the night. They ignored it.

That Kelly was initially conscious is confirmed not only by the scream in the night, but by Bond's report. The arterial spray from the neck hit the wall in "separate splashes." Why separate? Because the heart pumps and blood is under pressure until it stops pumping. Ergo, she was not strangled to death; the knife cuts to the throat were among the first to be inflicted, and she was obviously very much alive.

What I am suggesting is that the wounds on Kelly's forearm are highly suggestive of a person throwing their left arm across the front of their face/throat to protect themselves from a knife wielding maniac. Obviously, once the arm is cut, the victim lowers it in shock, pain, and horror, leaving the throat vulnerable. The whole ugly episode last only a few seconds, leaving time for the victim to scream out once or twice, before the vocal chords are severed.

See the photo below. Throwing your arm across your face is a natural human response to being attacked. As far as I can judge, the location of the 'F' wound is just about right if Kelly had tried to wrap her left arm across the right side of her throat, and, according to Bond's description of the arterial spray, it was the right side of the throat that was first cut.

Anyway, you're entire argument is an absurdity, Ike, as note by Mr. Nelson. You want us to believe you can pick out these initials as plain as day from a grainy photograph, but Dr. Bond--who was there--fails to see them, or note them, despite the fact that he studied them long enough to conclude they were "separate splashes" and "arterial spray."

And, anyway, if the phantom 'F' on Kelly's forearm is obvious to you, it could have been equally obvious to Bongo Barrett when he helped A. N. Other create her novella. Great minds think alike, and I see ample similarities between your thought processes and those of Barrett.

I apologize for hijacking the thread, but I wanted to respond to your strange point. This is about ngrams, not about phantom initials.

[The Baron]

Sleepwalked



Using the google ngrams search tool revealed that the word sleepwalked happened for the first time in 1915 !!!






The Baron

[The Baron]

Bumbling buffoon


According to google ngrams, this phrase happened for the first time in 1950 !!



The Baron

[The Baron]

I will take this phrase Bumbling Buffoon any day in the week as a proof the Diary is a fake.



The Baron

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Bumbling buffoon


According to google ngrams, this phrase happened for the first time in 1950 !!



The Baron

That's an interesting one, those two words don't want to appear next to each other in print at all pre 20th century. Not in any context, despite them both being in use for a couple of hundred years. I'm sure folks of the LVP would understand the inference, but it seems strange that it's hard to find that exact phrase in print. Not saying it isn't out there somewhere though.

[The Baron]

From Urbandictionary

bumbling buffoon

A bumbling buffoon is someone who wakes up in the morning and bumbles around not having any direction whatsoever. He needs to do many unimportant things like take the trash across the property and poop. And he takes about three hours to do it. A bumbling buffoon takes forever to do anything. It takes him twenty minutes just to pay for a parking meter because he has to search through his car for change when he could just use his debit card. He makes everyone wait around for him because he thinks that his mission is priority when we're all just waiting for him to get it together so we can have our pancakes and go already



The hoaxer used this phrase while talking about Hopper

I have him down as a bumbling buffoon


I doubt anyone in 1889 will understand the meaning.


The Baron

[caz]

I don't think there is any good reason to believe that the Bard of Goldie Street was aware of the 'FM' mythology. He's playing a different funny little game of his own invention.

I agree, RJ. The funny little game of his own invention was to see if he could shaft his nemesis, Paul Feldman, by claiming to have created the diary himself. I wonder if he was canny enough to predict that the line of people queueing up to believe him would stretch out to the crack of doom.

The hoaxer writes 'an initial here, an initial there,' which indicates the initials will NOT be found side-by-side. One initial will be found in one location, the other initial will be found somewhere else. That's the implication. By contrast, the arterial blood spray (wrongly interpreted as 'FM') does not fill the bill. The initials are side-by-side and even bleed--sorry for the pun!--into one another. Which hardly qualifies as "an initial here, an initial there."

That was my argument years ago, RJ. Nice to know you can see it for yourself.

Further, the hoaxer also writes that this clue is 'in front for all eyes to see'--thus stupidly retaining the perspective of the police camera, as humorously noted by the historian Alex Chisholm. 'FM' is not 'in front' of anything; it's on the back sidewall.

But you just argued that the hoaxer wasn't referring to any initials on 'the back sidewall'.

Thus, the infamous 'FM' is just a misinterpretation by Feldman...

Agreed.

...and his latter day groupies.

Now now, play nicely and allow others to have an opinion of their own, without resorting to unhelpful stereotyping.

Personally, I believe that Bongo Barrett was referring to the 'M' found on Annie Chapman's envelope (earlier referred to in the diary as a clue) and the vague 'F' that Ike sees on Kelly's forearm, which is almost certainly nothing more than a grisly defensive wound, as previously demonstrated. Thus, 'an initial here, an initial there.'

Fine, that's your personal belief and you are welcome to it. But even supposing you can read the hoaxer's mind, your 'M' was certainly not 'in front for all eyes to see', while your 'F' would have been 'in front', not only from the perspective of the police camera, and the eyes of the person looking through it, but for the eyes of anyone else in that room facing the same direction - towards the life-size remains of MJK on the bed. You are surely not suggesting that wound could only have been seen by the cameraman, while everyone else who entered the room made a point of looking away from the corpse? What were they all doing, staring out of the window? Is that why you believe Mike Barrett wrote that the fools would never find it? He'd have had a point, wouldn't he?

'I wonder if next time I can carve my funny little rhyme on the whores flesh [and not just an initial]?'

Again, it's such a pity you didn't ask Mike what 'Sir Jim' was getting at with his initials, when he was in full-on 'confession' mode. His explanation might have raised a titter, if not his credibility as a hoaxer.

Love,

Caz
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