google ngrams

[MrBarnett]

You talk too much Caz, and like the "her nose annoyed me" your comments are shallow and fruitless.

If you know the source of Graham's statement then it will be better to bring it, if not then try to look for it, if not, then keep yourself busy in something else!



The Baron

Rude. Very rude.

What do you recommend - perhaps Caz should use a few emojis to add some gravitas to her posts?

[rjpalmer]

For something to qualify as an anachronism, I would think it would have to be a recognizable figure-of-speech. One off instance, spread mayhem, and bumbling buffoon fall into that category, but I'm not entirely convinced 'whoring mother' does. The phrase does appear in a few romance/pulp fiction novels in the 1970s/80s including John Jake's "The Patriot", which was turned into a t.v. mini-series, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone in 'real' life actually use it on this side of the pond. It might have been pinched from the Spanish, 'puta madre,' which are fighting words in Mexico. So maybe Ike can attribute it to his old friend, Diego Laurenz.

This won't sit well in certain quarters, but according to Melvin Harris, whose source must have been Alan Gray, Maybrick's trash talk in the diary was loosely based on the trash talk of Mike Barrett's friend Tony Devereux, who was allegedly infamous for always referring to his ex-wife as 'the whore.' I don't know how Gray would have confirmed this; maybe the bartender down at The Saddle, or Devereux's old co-workers. The clock ticks; it's no longer provable, but for me, it has the ring of truth.

[The Baron]

Fair enough RJ, it is of course not in the same league as bumbling buffoon or one of instance, but still, I would like to see a reference to this, easy looking and 12 times used phrase ever been common in the 19th century.

If it was not there, then don't blame me if I consider it yet again another definitive proof that the scrapbook is a modern hoax.

And as you rightly spotted, we want to know what is the source for Graham's claim concerning this 'whoring mother' phrase, and it has to be a first hand documented source.

We have to remember that this lady had hidden the wrong reference of the godmother as an Aunt from us, we had to question every claim she makes.



The Baron

[The Baron]

whoring mother







The Baron

[Iconoclast]

whoring mother



The Baron

Just another warning from history that one must have some sense of perspective when assessing what those nice 'exponential' graphs show; and also a reminder to us all that Google Ngrams will inevitably have greater access to modern works and far less to much older works which simply shows us what is common in modern works without properly answering the question about what was common in Victorian works (and indeed earlier as it starts at 1800).

'Whoring' was a word apparently in much decline in the 1800s and only took off again in the mid-1900s but was that because the word was suddenly in favour again or because more books were available for Ngrams to search by then? By chance, the same phenomenon appears to have happened with the word 'mother'. Is that really likely? Surely we would all have expected the reverse to be true? Is 'mother' more common because we have more books from that period or because it became a more common word?



You wouldn't think anyone had ever used the word 'whoring', mind, when juxtaposed with 'mother'.



All jesting apart, we need to take Ngrams outcomes with a huge pinch of salt (which obviously - since 1947 when Google Ngrams invented the phrase - we have been able to sprinkle on our freshly-picked carrots).

Ike

[The Baron]

There seems to be a few turns of phrase that were not in vogue for when the diary was purportedly written. The more of them that mount up, the more damaging it is to the diary's credibility. Of course, the pro-diarists will keep taking refuge in absence of evidence as not evidence of absence. In fact, since they believe the diary is genuine, and the diary contains those phrases, that in itself proves the diary's authenticity. That's the kind of dishonest logic critics are up against and there's no quarrelling with blind faith.

Hi Harry,


do you mean something like this:

If Maybrick wrote it on a lark while he was high, there wouldn't be any fatal flaws - anachronistic terms or phrases or insurmountable timeline problems etc. The same goes for any old hoax theory written by a contemporary author within James' circle.

The absence of fatal flaws suggests, at least, the weakness of the modern hoax theory.

And this:

Frequent is either an irrelevant argument or else it supports the Diary being an old document.

Who else but a Victorian or pre-Victorian know how to use frequent properly, or acceptably, for a "one-time" event in this manner, as it appears to do?

Now enjoy your evening there Harry!



The Baron

[Kattrup]

So for the benefit of posters who might try to invalidate some of the results from Google Ngrams by "explaining" with great confidence how they work:

From https://books.google.com/ngrams/info

Many more books are published in modern years. Doesn't this skew the results?

It would if we didn't normalize by the number of books published in each year.

I gues our friends at google aren't exactly stupid. Perhaps that is why they use a %-sign in their graph, to signify that it shows frequency, not absolute numbers.

And as has been explained before, results only appear for ngrams that have occured at least 40 times, so it is possible for e.g. "one off" to have results of 0% even though we know that some examples do exist.

And it might be worth noting that the various ngrams that have been posted have so far been using the general English corpus. One can differentiate between books published predominantly in the UK and the US, so the results can vary.

It also possible to search primarily in works denoted by publishers as fiction, i.e. try to avoid searching through many technical journals etc. that might not use "bumbling buffoon" very often while discussing drain pipes or other matters of interest to engineers.

For instance, spreading mayhem occurs more often in works of fiction than in works in English in general:

[Iconoclast]

Many more books are published in modern years. Doesn't this skew the results?

It would if we didn't normalize by the number of books published in each year.

Okay, useful point noted - phrases can be used in letters and in speech but not necessarily be commonly used in print so they get ignored, therefore appearing to not be used at all? That's good to know.

When Google say "It would if we didn't normalize by the number of books published in each year" I assume they mean "It would if we didn't normalize by the number of books published in each year which are actually available to be OCR'd by our software", yes?

Ike

PS Thanks for the heads-up about Ngrams ignoring certain phrases if they haven't appeared in print very often.

[caz]

You talk too much Caz, and like the "her nose annoyed me" your comments are shallow and fruitless.

If you know the source of Graham's statement then it will be better to bring it, if not then try to look for it, if not, then keep yourself busy in something else!



The Baron

What would you recommend? Stroking fluffy kittens? Embroidering a hankie? RJ Palmer accused me the other day of having 'nagged' him. And Christer Holmgren has said I should go away and do some knitting or baking.

Christer denied being misogynistic, claiming that one of his best male friends was fond of knitting. I don't think anyone bought that for a second.

What a shower.

And that's the polite version.

[caz]

Fair enough RJ, it is of course not in the same league as bumbling buffoon or one of instance, but still, I would like to see a reference to this, easy looking and 12 times used phrase ever been common in the 19th century.

If it was not there, then don't blame me if I consider it yet again another definitive proof that the scrapbook is a modern hoax.

And as you rightly spotted, we want to know what is the source for Graham's claim concerning this 'whoring mother' phrase, and it has to be a first hand documented source.

We have to remember that this lady had hidden the wrong reference of the godmother as an Aunt from us, we had to question every claim she makes.



The Baron

How many 'definitive proofs' does it take to change the record?

Why are you still here, Baron? Wasn't one enough for you?

[caz]

I don't know who MayBea was, Baron, but their last post was six bloody years ago!

But do carry on desperately seeking more definitive proofs. And stay away from the scissors.

[The Baron]

Absence of evidence in this case would indeed be evidence of absence, if you can't come up with a single quote from the last thirteen years.

Good luck with your search, Harry.

I don't know who MayBea was, Baron, but their last post was six bloody years ago!

!!!!!!




The Baron

[Iconoclast]

!!!!!!

The Baron

And your point, caller?

[Harry D]

I don't know who MayBea was, Baron, but their last post was six bloody years ago!

But do carry on desperately seeking more definitive proofs. And stay away from the scissors.

Don't move the goalposts, Caz. You asked me for an example, Baron provided two.

What difference does it make how long ago they posted?

[caz]

!!!!!!

The Baron

Apologies, Baron. I had no idea Harry's poisoned arrow was directed at a poster who hasn't been around for six years. I assumed he would be aiming it at posters who are still active, such as Ike and erobitha, or it would be pointless - like the arrow.

Love,

Caz
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