Maybrick Diary - Fake or Genuine

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  • Herlock Sholmes
    Commissioner
    • May 2017
    • 22335

    #91
    Originally posted by Iconoclast View Post

    Oh, if only he had! That would have saved us all a lot of soul-searching and pain over the last 30+ years. But he didn't, did he? He didn't mention going to see Everton play at Goodison Park on the opening day of the Football League, the very day he killed Annie Chapman, and he didn't mention Queen Victoria getting the six-foot-under treatment. What a wee scunner, eh?

    So that means you have to rely on an expression for which there can never be concrete evidence that it could not have been used in 1888 or 1889. We might all hear the argument loud and clear - as I do - but I'm not jumping in feet first with full-on support for a hoax until I know for certain that the term 'one-off' could not have been used figuratively with 'instance'. There must be millions of documents from the Victorian period which are no longer available to us (never mind all those spoken words now lost to us forever) so I'm not jumping in feet first to back up me auld da's desperation to make a killer point.

    Just as 'freshly picked carrots' was apparently never spoken or written by anyone, ever, ever, ever, until 1947, so the expression 'one-off instance' was never used until whenever it finally was.

    And at least freshly picked carrots is about as unambiguous as it gets, as opposed to the 'one-off instance' which might have actually been ' a one 'off' instance'. We'll just never know, sadly, so we'll need a wee bit more than that set of assumptions before we jump ship and join your creaking hull.
    "freshly picked carrots" isn't an expression though, Ike!

    Even "freshly picked" isn't really an expression, but we can find plenty of examples of it from the nineteenth century. There must be thousands of nouns we can add after "freshly picked" which have never been recorded in a sentence before, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have been used in the nineteenth century. Freshly picked sparrows for example. I doubt you'll find a recorded example of this before today but it's still an English sentence which anyone could have created in history.

    "One off" is not only an extremely useful expression, for which we can find literally millions of twentieth and twenty-first century examples (with none in the nineteenth century), but, as part of the phrase "one off instance", it requires "one off" words to bear the meaning of "unique" or "unrepeatable", which simply wasn't the case in 1888, which is how we know the diary is a fake.
    Regards

    Herlock Sholmes

    ”I think that Herlock is a genius.” Trevor Marriott

    Comment

    • Iconoclast
      Commissioner
      • Aug 2015
      • 4183

      #92
      Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
      ... which is how we know the diary is a fake.
      As Ricky Gervais says, you are welcome to have your own opinions but you can't have your own facts.
      Iconoclast
      Materials: HistoryvsMaybrick – Dropbox

      Comment

      • Herlock Sholmes
        Commissioner
        • May 2017
        • 22335

        #93
        Originally posted by Iconoclast View Post

        As Ricky Gervais says, you are welcome to have your own opinions but you can't have your own facts.


        So basically Ike….



        Mr X challenges anyone to refute Z


        Mr Y steps up and says “here is the refutation of Z….along with the research that I’ve done which proves the refutation to be correct…ok?”


        Mr X - Erm…no.


        Mr Y - So you don’t accept it?


        Mr X - No.


        Mr Y - And why is that?


        Mr X - Erm…I just don’t.


        Mr Y - But what is your reasoning behind your refusal to accept my refutation?


        Mr X - Erm….it doesn’t sound right.


        Mr Y - Really?


        Mr X - Yeah…surely it can’t be right.


        Mr Y - But you have no evidence that it’s not right?


        Mr X - Erm….well…no.



        Ten years later….



        Mr Y - Ok, so you and your pals have had 10 years to refute my point. Have you?


        Mr X - Erm…no.


        Mr Y - Ok, so now do you accept it?


        Mr X - No.


        Mr Y - Why not?


        Mr X - I just don’t. Please stop asking me.


        Mr Y - So how much longer do you and your pals think that you might need to refute my point properly?


        Mr X - Erm…maybe another 10 years?


        Mr Y - Another 10?!


        Mr X - At least.


        Mr Y - And when that 10 years is up and you still haven’t refuted my point will you and your pals accept it?


        Mr X - Erm….let’s not be too hasty.


        Regards

        Herlock Sholmes

        ”I think that Herlock is a genius.” Trevor Marriott

        Comment

        • Lombro2
          Sergeant
          • Jun 2023
          • 574

          #94
          …as part of the phrase "one off instance", it requires "one off" words to bear the meaning of "unique"
          And how exactly can a one-off product in 1888 not ever possibly be a unique product?

          Were they all castings of non-unique parts that needed replacing?
          A Northern Italian invented Criminology but Thomas Harris surpassed us all. Except for Michael Barrett and his Diary of Jack the Ripper.

          Comment

          • Herlock Sholmes
            Commissioner
            • May 2017
            • 22335

            #95
            Originally posted by Lombro2 View Post

            And how exactly can a one-off product in 1888 not ever possibly be a unique product?

            Were they all castings of non-unique parts that needed replacing?
            As has been explained many many times Lombro, there was no such thing as "a one-off product" in 1888. That type of expression wasn't used. If anything, they might have spoken of a "special" product, or something similar. They didn't speak of one off products. The use of one off in the nineteenth century was in the sense of, e.g., casting one off, but they might equally cast two off or three off or a thousand off. So it's only a quantity at that time.

            What needs to happen for "one off instance" to come into use in the English language is for "one off" to first develop a separate meaning of uniqueness. We know this didn't happen until the twentieth century. Even if you don't believe me, it's recorded in dictionaries and phrase books. The evolution of the expression in the English language, as the concept of a one off job or product spread from discreet manufacturing or engineering jargon in the first half of the twentieth century to wider figurative usage amongst the general population after the Second World War is extremely well documented.
            Regards

            Herlock Sholmes

            ”I think that Herlock is a genius.” Trevor Marriott

            Comment

            • Lombro2
              Sergeant
              • Jun 2023
              • 574

              #96
              So “one off” is a quantity like “two off” but did not ever mean, or refer to, something unique until 1945. If it did, it was completely incidental and irrelevant to the usage of the phrase “one off” because “two off” also could be incidentally unique in 1888 up to 1945.

              I think this is an embarrassment to EFL, as opposed to ESL.
              A Northern Italian invented Criminology but Thomas Harris surpassed us all. Except for Michael Barrett and his Diary of Jack the Ripper.

              Comment

              • Herlock Sholmes
                Commissioner
                • May 2017
                • 22335

                #97
                Originally posted by Lombro2 View Post
                So “one off” is a quantity like “two off” but did not ever mean, or refer to, something unique until 1945. If it did, it was completely incidental and irrelevant to the usage of the phrase “one off” because “two off” also could be incidentally unique in 1888 up to 1945.

                I think this is an embarrassment to EFL, as opposed to ESL.
                No, Lombro, that's not what I said at all. Try reading it again. It was only two short paragraphs.
                Regards

                Herlock Sholmes

                ”I think that Herlock is a genius.” Trevor Marriott

                Comment

                • Lombro2
                  Sergeant
                  • Jun 2023
                  • 574

                  #98
                  So a product could be a unique one off in 1888.

                  Therefore “one off” could mean and refer to something unique in 1888 to a select group of men in private print or discussion without it ever having to enter the official English As A First Language lexicon.
                  A Northern Italian invented Criminology but Thomas Harris surpassed us all. Except for Michael Barrett and his Diary of Jack the Ripper.

                  Comment

                  • Herlock Sholmes
                    Commissioner
                    • May 2017
                    • 22335

                    #99
                    Originally posted by Lombro2 View Post
                    So a product could be a unique one off in 1888.

                    Therefore “one off” could mean and refer to something unique in 1888 to a select group of men in private print or discussion without it ever having to enter the official English As A First Language lexicon.
                    Two non sequiturs in one short post. Good effort, Lombro.
                    Regards

                    Herlock Sholmes

                    ”I think that Herlock is a genius.” Trevor Marriott

                    Comment

                    • Lombro2
                      Sergeant
                      • Jun 2023
                      • 574

                      #100
                      It was a real Perry Mason moment.

                      Thank you Johnny Cochrane.
                      A Northern Italian invented Criminology but Thomas Harris surpassed us all. Except for Michael Barrett and his Diary of Jack the Ripper.

                      Comment

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