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[Lombro2]

Nothing New Nothing Real

Prof Lombro

[rjpalmer]

The answer is that it is a modern fake.

I agree, Herlock.

Imagine if the diarist called Dr. Hopper some other readily recognizable two-word insult instead of 'bumbling buffoon,' such as "trailer trash" or "Jesus freak."

To a rational person, these phrases would similarly indicate the diary was a modern fake, but hope springs eternal, and one could still deny it in the same way we are seeing now.

As far as I can tell, "trailer trash" developed in the U.S. around the time of the Great Depression, when people were traveling around in travel trailers; I've found it being used in 1937. I suspect the well-known phrase "white trash" was turned into "trailer trash" by some ill-mannered wit. The expression wasn't commonly used in the UK until the 1980s, based on what I'm seeing in newspaper archives, and perhaps it's not all that common now; I don't know.

But since the word 'trailer' has been around for ages, as in the sense of something or someone following or trailing something else, and was used to describe a wagon since the 1890s, and the word "trash" was used in the American South by at least the 1890s to describe discarded matter (such as the outer bark when stripping sugar cane), it could be argued that 'Maybrick' coined the expression himself, and it miraculously took off for a second time decades later. The trashy Dr. Hopper was trailing his patients around giving them unwanted advice, etc.

Jesus Freak, which used to be an insult but has now been embraced by some Christian groups, seems to have developed in the 1960s. A 'freak' was an enthusiast or monomaniac in counter-culture slang: an acid freak, a speed freak, etc. The earliest I can find the phrase "Jesus-Freak" (with a hyphen) is in a 1967 novel by Kenneth Lamott, but there were probably earlier examples, but I doubt they would have been much earlier than 1960.

But since 'Jesus' as a name has been around for over 2,000 years and 'freak' in the sense of a "freak of nature' has been around since the 1840s, someone wishing to defend the diary against accusations of modern fraudulence could again point out that there was nothing impossible in Maybrick, a clever wordsmith, coining the phrase.

After all, Maybrick was a clever chap and had also coined the phrase "Jack the Ripper" and "The Juwes are the men,"...etc.

I don't see the above examples as anything different than the arguments that 'one off instance' and 'bumbling buffoon' are not modern expressions.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock -- one final, tedious point.

I dispute that the diarist is guilty of a 'tautology' or a redundancy when he (or she) writes: "I apologized, a one off instance, I said, which I regretted and assured the whore it would never happen again."

(I think what was being implied is that a tautology indicates that the phrase 'one off' wouldn't have been known to Florence (or the reader) and thus had to be explained by restating the same idea a second time).

But it is not a tautology because two different ideas are being expressed.

It is a "one off instance" because the violence hadn't happened in the past; adding that it would 'never happen again' is an assurance that it won't happen again in the future.

Two different ideas--two different statements.

Sometime back, I posted some modern court cases where this same pattern was used. In one case, a man let his dog loose and was fined; he said it was a 'one off' and through his barrister he promised the court it would not happen again. This was from the 1980s when the phrase 'one off' was well known. Obviously, the person was not explaining the expression to the court. He was saying it hadn't happened in the past and wouldn't happen in the future.

[Lombro2]

So you decided not to walk it back over here? Or is this your way of walking it back. It does make the "opposite" position sound pretty sound (alert! New expression?).

The Diary has only a few more invented or anachronistic "ahead-of-it's-time" expressions than the equivalent number of pages of a Dickens book. But Dickens was from London so you can't expect much.

But Gary B is pretty good for a Londoner. And he doesn't insult Liverpudlians.

They are modern expressions. But Jack the Ripper was ahead of his time. In every way. Or maybe the rest of the world was lagging behind. London, England anyway.

[rjpalmer]

But Gary B is pretty good for a Londoner. And he doesn't insult Liverpudlians.

O, I don't know. I think Gary once expressed surprise that the tyres weren't stolen off Paul Feldman's sports car when he visited Liverpool.

[Lombro2]

It depends what you consider an insult.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock -- one final, tedious point.

I dispute that the diarist is guilty of a 'tautology' or a redundancy when he (or she) writes: "I apologized, a one off instance, I said, which I regretted and assured the whore it would never happen again."

(I think what was being implied is that a tautology indicates that the phrase 'one off' wouldn't have been known to Florence (or the reader) and thus had to be explained by restating the same idea a second time).

But it is not a tautology because two different ideas are being expressed.

It is a "one off instance" because the violence hadn't happened in the past; adding that it would 'never happen again' is an assurance that it won't happen again in the future.

Two different ideas--two different statements.

Sometime back, I posted some modern court cases where this same pattern was used. In one case, a man let his dog loose and was fined; he said it was a 'one off' and through his barrister he promised the court it would not happen again. This was from the 1980s when the phrase 'one off' was well known. Obviously, the person was not explaining the expression to the court. He was saying it hadn't happened in the past and wouldn't happen in the future.

Hi Roger,

Yes, I even quoted one such example myself some time ago. It's from the Aldershot News of November 15, 1985 reporting on an indecent assault case:

"Mr Ian Johnstone, defending, said the soldier, who has no previous convictions, refuted the claim that he had tried to enter the girl. He does, however, admit that those acts took place. They arose from playful antics within the home and it was certainly a one-off instance. It is not going to happen again."

It's a perfectly natural way of speaking, or writing.

[C. F. Leon]

We have been talking about the diary's use of words or phrases, but what about punctuation? I'm thinking about the modern use of multiple exclamation or question marks, hyphens, etc. Especially punctuation used as shorthand- the # used for "number", or @.

One example that I pay particular attention to is what's often called the "grocer's apostrophe"- apostrophes used to indicate plurals, which has become prevalent in the Internet Generation. Apostrophes are properly used to show either deleted letters in contractions or possession. And there are few things in languages EASIER than making plurals in English- add "-s", or "-es" or if the word ends in "y", change the "y" to "i" and add "es". (Words like mouse/mice, goose/geese, media, millennia, etc. are loan words from other languages and follow different rules.) I've found examples of this as early as the 1940s, but not earlier. (Dammit, I've found examples in books by Isaac Asimov, of all people! Frankly, I tend to put THAT down to poor editing.)

Are there any cases of this sort of thing in the Diary?

[Lombro2]

Michael Barrett must have really thought it through then. And was able to apply it organically in a couple of sentences to explain away an aberrant situation. Those Liverpudlians! Amazing!