Bumbling buffoon

[The Baron]

Another phrase that hadn't been used prior to 1949-1950 found its way magically to the "Diary"


Which proves of course, beyond any doubt, that the so called "Diary" is just a modern forgery.


The list of modernism in the scrapbook goes on and on, but that phrase alone is more than enough to blow it away.


Sleep well Diary defenders!



The Baron

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Is this Deja Vu? Or a parallel universe? ( OK Al, play it cool. Act natural.)

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.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/suspects/maybrick-james/739765-google-ngrams?p=740244#post740244

And now I'm quoting myself? Is that you Mr Serling?

[The Baron]

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...244#post740244

And now I'm quoting myself? Is that you Mr Serling?

The Baron

[John Wheat]

Another phrase that hadn't been used prior to 1949-1950 found its way magically to the "Diary"


Which proves of course, beyond any doubt, that the so called "Diary" is just a modern forgery.


The list of modernism in the scrapbook goes on and on, but that phrase alone is more than enough to blow it away.


Sleep well Diary defenders!



The Baron

The Diary is a modern fake then? Shock horror. What will the deluded diary defenders do now?

[The Baron]

The Diary is a modern fake then? Shock horror. What will the deluded diary defenders do now?

Write their own diaries?!



The Baron

[Harry D]

You do know the pro-diarists will use the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence argument, right?

[The Baron]

Too late, it is a case closed now!

This is the time to clear the name of James Maybrick from any connection to the creation of that scrapbook.



The Baron

[MrBarnett]

Alliteration and complementary meanings - tempting low-hanging fruit for anyone who loves playing around with language. ‘Bumptious buffoon’ certainly proved irresistible.


But if something can’t be googled, it never existed. Even mateshift is now online.

[caz]

Of course, this should have clicked with me years ago when I met Mike Barrett in Liverpool. I couldn't get a word in edgeways because he kept referring to the bumbling buffoons who didn't believe he wrote the diary, in the same breath as the bumbling buffoons who did believe it.

Depending on what Mike was claiming and when, I guess he must have had us all down as bumbling buffoons at one time or another.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Alliteration and complementary meanings - tempting low-hanging fruit for anyone who loves playing around with language. ‘Bumptious buffoon’ certainly proved irresistible.


But if something can’t be googled, it never existed. Even mateshift is now online.

It's a fair point, but it becomes less and less credible as more and more texts from the 17th and 18th Centuries become digitized. One newspaper collection I browse has over 70 million articles, many of them with alliterative quips, but none of them with 'bumbling buffoon' pre-1940.

While, by contrast, it is beyond argument that the recognizable insult "bumbling buffoon" was in wide circulation in 1992, when Bongo Barrett came forward with a diary that also quotes a police inventory list not available to the public until the 1980s, and ink that hadn't yet bonded to the paper, as tested by Dr. Baxendale.

If the funeral bell is not tolling, it should be.

Looking through a film script database I see that our bumbling buffoon made its way into a Batman episode (1967) and, using a lyric database, a punk rock song by The Dead Kennedys (1986). As well as thousands of other examples in the modern era.

I think one would be hard pressed to suggest that these were all independent linguistic creations, by people that liked to play around with words. Nor do I think it is the case with the diarist. He is repeating a well-known alliterative insult that was in circulation. Just not in circulation in 1889.

[Abby Normal]

Of course, this should have clicked with me years ago when I met Mike Barrett in Liverpool. I couldn't get a word in edgeways because he kept referring to the bumbling buffoons who didn't believe he wrote the diary, in the same breath as the bumbling buffoons who did believe it.

Depending on what Mike was claiming and when, I guess he must have had us all down as bumbling buffoons at one time or another.

Love,

Caz
X

but it didnt click with you that if hes using a phrase in the diary it just might point to him writing the diary?

[The Baron]

He is repeating a well-known alliterative insult that was in circulation. Just not in circulation in 1889.

He repeated it in the "Diary" two times!


"Hopper did not believe me. One day I will take revenge on him. The whore has informed the bumbling buffoon I am in the habit of taking strong medicine"



The Baron

[caz]

but it didnt click with you that if hes using a phrase in the diary it just might point to him writing the diary?

Sorry Abby, you missed my funny little joke. Mike Barrett never used that expression in my company, nor in any of the correspondence or recorded conversations I have seen or heard. But of course, he could have done, and it would have told me precisely nothing, because it would have been very much in keeping with his fully documented penchant for quoting phrases from the diary at the drop of a mole bonnett [sic]. If he had only produced an example dating from before 9th March 1992, his goose would have been well and truly stuffed and cooked.

Personally, if you thought it might just point to me having written the Scottish play for Willy S, every time I quote from that, I'd be a very happy bunny, despite the fact I'd have to be even older than I look.

Not that I consider the diary to be in that league, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Mike was so impressed that he wished he'd had the 'capacity' to write it himself, in spite of Melvin Harris knowing very well that he didn't.

Love,

Caz
X

[Michael W Richards]

You do know the pro-diarists will use the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence argument, right?

Its also the absence of any evidence the man is a viable Suspect, so a waste of time all round.