google ngrams

[caz]

Gary -- surely you can appreciate the reasons why academics might want to find a method for objectively analyzing language, as opposed to 'feel,' which will always live under the taint of 'subjectivity'?

Dr. Kate Flint, a lecturer in Victorian literature, felt the diary's language was modern. I think she's right, of course, and apparently so do you, but one example she used in arguing for modernity was the phrase 'gathering momentum.'

Now just imagine if along came a guy named Gary, tinkering with an n-gram--or a newspaper archive--who discovered rather quickly that the phrase 'gathering momentum' was actually in fairly wide use in the Victorian era?

How well would Dr. Flint's subjective 'feel' have held up against the cold hard realities of an objective analysis?

Not very well. And I write this even though I agree with Flint's 'sense' or 'feel.'

Computers don't have feelings. At least not yet. And, of course, you yourself have spent time tinkering in the cold harsh world of newspaper archives in an attempt to trip up the 'anti-diarists.'

I get the feeling I may be walking into a trap here but - oh well, what the hell?

It was the same Dr Kate Flint, I presume, who confidently stated that the expression 'to top oneself', meaning to commit suicide by hanging, did not exist in print before 1958. Now I appreciate this had nothing to do with her subjective 'feel', but was instead a simple failure to find an earlier instance, which led her to conclude there wasn't one.

Much to RJ's chagrin, it was our very own Gary, who was 'tinkering' in another attempt to trip up the 'anti-diarists', when he happened upon the expression with this precise meaning in a newspaper dating back to the 1870s, eight decades earlier than Kate's earliest. Had Gary left well alone and not meddled, RJ would still be able to wheel out Kate and her 1958 date, and from where I'm sitting, this looks to me like the real reason why RJ is picking a fight with him. But this was no 'attempt' to trip anyone up. How narrow and self-serving must one's field of vision be to see it this way, when all Gary did was to prove that one of the go-to academics RJ and his ilk had once relied on, regarding the diary's use of language, had got their facts wrong? Why would anyone with an ounce of objectivity or integrity in their bones object to what Gary is doing, and have nothing but contempt for the practice, if it sets a bogus record straight?

Kate's mistake might or might not have had something to do with the fact that her expertise is/was in Victorian literature, not language and its evolution from that era. Was she looking in all the right places? But this is ironic in itself, given that nobody at either end of the great diary divide would appear to consider Maybrick's musings to be a work of literature, Victorian or otherwise. Could her subjective 'feel' for the language of the diary also have let her down because her field was the study of literature, of which the diary is hardly a typical example?

I always feel that academics stray from what they do best at their peril, and have only themselves to blame if a Gary comes along and shows them the error of their strays.

You know how this ends, don't you?

If Dr Kate Flint can be so wrong once, or twice...

...you can all guess the rest.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

"The diary saga needn't even be a part of Ripper World unless you let it."


True, it has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that this scrapbook is a hoax, and a cheap one at that, but they let it be a part of a forum discussing the Ripper case, and you may need to accept that.

The person who started this forum years ago, Stephen Ryder, did so because of the Maybrick Diary. If not for the Diary, none of us would be posting here.

[caz]

Thanks for clearing that up, Caz.

So, if I understand you correctly, you have offered resistance & criticism & counterarguments on the Lechmere threads because you have great respect "for anyone who is constantly looking for better evidence against him [Lechmere]"

By contrast, you are merely puzzled by those posting on the Maybrick threads who are "seeking new ways to make their case."

The difference is perhaps too subtle for me to comprehend, but as you know by now, my skull is abnormally thick.

All the best.

I'll try to make this simpler and less subtle for you, RJ.

I am puzzled by the dichotomy I see, where the same people who keep claiming it was case closed for the diary when Mike Barrett swore one of his affidavits back in 1995, continue to seek new ways to close the damned thing.

I respect those who are honest enough with themselves to know when a case has not been closed, and there is much more work still to do. Very few ripper theorists are so blinkered about their suspect that they can no longer tolerate any objections, or admit they might be wrong about his guilt.

But Barrett hoax theorists tend to be a different breed in my experience.

Q: When is the case against the Barretts closed?

A: When the last of the believers lock up behind them and no longer return to check.

[caz]

Someone special once wrote:

"The diary saga needn't even be a part of Ripper World unless you let it."


True, it has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that this scrapbook is a hoax, and a cheap one at that, but they let it be a part of a forum discussing the Ripper case, and you may need to accept that.

You will see us ripping this poor document again and again, and overkilling it the way we like, you have to keep your tears away, and learn to see your dear 'diary' being attacked and stabbed every now and then, it is the nature of things, especially when they are as weak as this child of the void 'diary'.

Keep yourself together, it doesn't deserve your pure and neverending sympathy.



The Baron

Hi Baron,

Well I for one never asked for Maybrick to have his own suspect threads - and that can be taken both ways.

Let me reassure you that any tears I shed won't be for my 'dear' diary, but there are often tears of laughter here when I see how others continue to attack it as if it's some great hairy beast they can't quite finish off, when in reality it's just an inanimate object that doesn't happen to have an identified creator to attack instead. This place sometimes reminds me of Hotel California. They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast.

Oh, by the way, I do wonder how someone with your command of the language would recognise a 'cheap' hoax if one did rise up from its nailed down coffin and bite you on the derriere.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

We really didn’t need to resort to Ngrams etc to detect a modern feel to the language, did we? Perhaps some do because they have little feeling for English usage.

Gary -- surely you can appreciate the reasons why academics might want to find a method for objectively analyzing language, as opposed to 'feel,' which will always live under the taint of 'subjectivity'?

Dr. Kate Flint, a lecturer in Victorian literature, felt the diary's language was modern. I think she's right, of course, and apparently so do you, but one example she used in arguing for modernity was the phrase 'gathering momentum.'

Now just imagine if along came a guy named Gary, tinkering with an n-gram--or a newspaper archive--who discovered rather quickly that the phrase 'gathering momentum' was actually in fairly wide use in the Victorian era?

How well would Dr. Flint's subjective 'feel' have held up against the cold hard realities of an objective analysis?

Not very well. And I write this even though I agree with Flint's 'sense' or 'feel.'

Computers don't have feelings. At least not yet. And, of course, you yourself have spent time tinkering in the cold harsh world of newspaper archives in an attempt to trip up the 'anti-diarists.'

Cheers, RP.

P.S. the reasons that Caz's comment about changing populations, etc, doesn't carry any weight when it comes to an analysis of newspaper archives is that newspapers actually shrank as the population grew.

Anyone who has spent any time looking through newspapers between 1910-1940 knows how extensive they were, especially on Sundays when they were book length. Changing populations and technologies has nothing to do with it.

For example, I have here a copy of the New York Times for a Sunday, July 21, 1921, and its' 136 pages in length. This was the golden age of journalism, and these papers were filled with court reports, funny anecdotes, human interest stories, comics, etc. etc. and yet you can't find a single use of 'bumbling buffoon'?

Even though examples are readily available in the much smaller newspapers of the 1980s and 90s?

How do you propose to explain this rationally?

And if you don' accept my arguments, you should at least listen to this guy:

[rjpalmer]

Hi RJ,

I think it's because with Lechmere, he was at least directly connected with one of the ripper murders, so he does warrant the status of person of interest, and I respect anyone who is constantly looking for better evidence against him, or for evidence to eliminate him, as opposed to those who insist they are right, and anyone who disagrees is wrong. I haven't caught up with that long thread about him, and don't know when I'll have the time to do so.

I find ripper suspectology in general to be a world away from the modern diary story, yet I get the impression that others still see James Maybrick as a ripper suspect to be argued for or against, just like on the Lechmere, Druitt or Bury threads. To me this is like asking me to choose between the Beatles and the Stones. What keeps me here is my interest in exploring how Mike Barrett could have ended up with this diary, and why its author set out to combine the Whitechapel Murders with the Maybrick Case and turn Jack into a Scouser.

Others claim to be 100% satisfied they knew all the answers years ago, and that the Barretts created the diary together from their own imaginations. Yet those same people are still here, arguing the toss as if they are not quite as certain as they profess to be, and are trying to convince themselves as much as anyone. I can't readily think of a better explanation. If they have already tested their own beliefs to the max, and have found no reason to question them, why are they seeking new ways to make their case?

Thanks for clearing that up, Caz.

So, if I understand you correctly, you have offered resistance & criticism & counterarguments on the Lechmere threads because you have great respect "for anyone who is constantly looking for better evidence against him [Lechmere]"

By contrast, you are merely puzzled by those posting on the Maybrick threads who are "seeking new ways to make their case."

The difference is perhaps too subtle for me to comprehend, but as you know by now, my skull is abnormally thick.

All the best.

[The Baron]

Someone special once wrote:

"The diary saga needn't even be a part of Ripper World unless you let it."


True, it has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that this scrapbook is a hoax, and a cheap one at that, but they let it be a part of a forum discussing the Ripper case, and you may need to accept that.

You will see us ripping this poor document again and again, and overkilling it the way we like, you have to keep your tears away, and learn to see your dear 'diary' being attacked and stabbed every now and then, it is the nature of things, especially when they are as weak as this child of the void 'diary'.

Keep yourself together, it doesn't deserve your pure and neverending sympathy.



The Baron

[caz]

Hi RJ,

I think it's because with Lechmere, he was at least directly connected with one of the ripper murders, so he does warrant the status of person of interest, and I respect anyone who is constantly looking for better evidence against him, or for evidence to eliminate him, as opposed to those who insist they are right, and anyone who disagrees is wrong. I haven't caught up with that long thread about him, and don't know when I'll have the time to do so.

I find ripper suspectology in general to be a world away from the modern diary story, yet I get the impression that others still see James Maybrick as a ripper suspect to be argued for or against, just like on the Lechmere, Druitt or Bury threads. To me this is like asking me to choose between the Beatles and the Stones. What keeps me here is my interest in exploring how Mike Barrett could have ended up with this diary, and why its author set out to combine the Whitechapel Murders with the Maybrick Case and turn Jack into a Scouser.

Others claim to be 100% satisfied they knew all the answers years ago, and that the Barretts created the diary together from their own imaginations. Yet those same people are still here, arguing the toss as if they are not quite as certain as they profess to be, and are trying to convince themselves as much as anyone. I can't readily think of a better explanation. If they have already tested their own beliefs to the max, and have found no reason to question them, why are they seeking new ways to make their case?

[rjpalmer]

What I don't understand is why so many continue to come up with more and more ways to try and make such a tiny number come over to their way of thinking.

Hi Caz. What impulse compels you to post on the Lechmere threads?

Are you trying to convince Christer to 'come over to your way of thinking?'

Or is it something else?

Curious,

R P

[Iconoclast]

'Many' believers, Trevor? Or fewer than you could count on one hand - even if your ripper experiments have left you with fewer than four fingers and a thumb?

What I don't understand is why so many continue to come up with more and more ways to try and make such a tiny number come over to their way of thinking.

Why does anyone bother, if they liken their considerable efforts to trying to convince someone that the earth is not flat and the moon not made of cheese?

Love,

Caz
X

I think Trevor would only need two fingers, Caz.

[caz]

'Many' believers, Trevor? Or fewer than you could count on one hand - even if your ripper experiments have left you with fewer than four fingers and a thumb?

What I don't understand is why so many continue to come up with more and more ways to try and make such a tiny number come over to their way of thinking.

Why does anyone bother, if they liken their considerable efforts to trying to convince someone that the earth is not flat and the moon not made of cheese?

Love,

Caz
X

[Trevor Marriott]

Yet here you are, dear Baron, still trying to kill it just one more time, presumably just in case David didn't quite manage to kill the beast, and it's only 'resting'.

It's an extraordinary thing, because as far as I'm aware the Hitler Diaries only had to be killed stone dead the once, and nobody has felt the slightest need or desire to exhume the remains on a daily basis to make sure.

Love,

Caz
X

Yes, and the reason for that was that no one belived them to be true, whereas with the mayrbick diary there are many who for some deluded reason belive it to be true

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[caz]

Orsam has killed the diary stone dead many times now...


The Baron

Yet here you are, dear Baron, still trying to kill it just one more time, presumably just in case David didn't quite manage to kill the beast, and it's only 'resting'.

It's an extraordinary thing, because as far as I'm aware the Hitler Diaries only had to be killed stone dead the once, and nobody has felt the slightest need or desire to exhume the remains on a daily basis to make sure.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

"It's a poor workman that blames his tools" -- Old Proverb.

I think that newspaper archives, some with millions of pages digitized, gives an excellent opportunity to study language patterns.

Of course, those failing to find "bumbling buffoon" before 1940 will always insist it must be a fault in the system, despite the same system readily spitting out hundreds of examples of its use in the 1950s-1980s--an era totally consistent with other indications of the diary's modernity.

They can give no logical reason for this, other than to complain that the technology is not giving the results they so obviously want.

The problem as I see it, RJ, is that the two eras you seek to compare in terms of everyday language usage - Victorian and post WWII - are so very different in themselves, in ways that all must surely be factored into this 'spitting out' of hundreds of examples from, say, the 1940s, which you don't even see being dribbled out previously. What about population growth in the intervening years? Improved literacy and education for everyone below the already privileged upper classes, leading to a far greater thirst and public demand for reading materials alone? What about post-Victorian technology that gave us the radio, the cinema and the tv, in addition to the old theatres and music halls? Most people by the 40s had access to a radio set and queued round the block most weeks for the latest cinema releases, before television resumed and later became a fixture in most homes. You don't think this would all have led to more and more people reading, hearing, absorbing and then spitting out, repeating and passing on more and more expressions as time went by - expressions which few might have learned or used in earlier decades, but were not suddenly 'invented' by someone shortly before the age of mass media, but would have been in existence for a lot longer?

It would be a different matter if the comparison was between two earlier eras, where population size and access to the language had not altered so dramatically between the two.

I wonder how the pre and post internet eras would look to someone comparing them in a hundred years from now? Instant access to pretty much anything we want to look up, at the tap on a tiny device, has already changed the world the Barretts knew in 1992 beyond recognition.

[The Baron]

Talking of one off instances, that one turned out to be a flash in the pan, didn't it?

Poor old David B! He tried so hard to nail it with the one off instance, then had to wheel in the aunt and the godmother to put the diary to bed once and for all. Yet his most loyal fans know his efforts were all for nothing, as they fanny about trying to bury bumbling buffoons and, elsewhere, to fight off those bloody initials, popping up here, there and everywhere, like the Hydra's teeth in Jason and the Argonauts.

So much for a Barrat - or a Barrett - showing them the writing on the wall years ago.

Love,

Caz
X

Orsam has killed the diary stone dead many times now, the research he did discovering the fatal "Aunt" mistake is a masterpiece and ripperology on steroids, something I won't be expecting from diary difenders, or those who pretend to know the story, when they are not able to tell the difference between a victorian phrase and a modern phrase.


Sorry to read this post of you.



The Baron