Arbeter Fraint's Take

[lynn cates]

Would you do that?

Hello Maria. Just to be clear--did you? (Heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Ah!

Hello Debs. Ah! OK. Looks like he came to work after that date--but he might mean he worked before but in a different capacity.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

If you're asking if I mean September 1889 then no, I mean 1888. Hall says Grande was working as a private inquiry man in Oct 1888 (and June 1889) and this October date must refer to the WVC work. So, Hall's evidence doesn't support Grande being hired by the WVC in September?

Apologies for butting in, but might I inquire from which month in 1888 is the Le Grand detective agency ad in Loyd's Weekly that Lynn has discovered? I've got the ad right here on my comp, but NOT its date!
Plus, it makes sense that Le Grand and Bachelor were hired by the WVC in September, since they were already at work on Oct. 1st. Or not? There are a couple old threads on this.

To Lynn:
Lynn, in my easyjet flight from Berlin to Orly there was a Hungarian steward prominently announced among the crew, their welcome announcement went something like this: “Our crew today speaks Hungarian, German, and English“. It cracked me up and reminded me of the old adage “You're a Ripperologist if you meet Hungarian people born in London and can't refrain from asking them if one of their ancestors was named Israel Schwartz.“

[Debra A]

Hello Debs. 1889?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn. 1889?
If you're asking if I mean September 1889 then no, I mean 1888. Hall says Grande was working as a private inquiry man in Oct 1888 (and June 1889) and this October date must refer to the WVC work. So, Hall's evidence doesn't support Grande being hired by the WVC in September?

[lynn cates]

guess

Hello Maria. As I said, it would be merely a guess.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Caz,
Having not experienced Ripperology and its history/precedents but for less than 2 years, I've been using the term “minimalist“ as it's used in the arts, AKA in the sense of “concentrating on the bare essentials“.

Le Grand has to be conjured up on Berner Street first, if that's the agenda, before you can start arguing what else can stay and what must go.

The fact that Packer lied was known to the contemporaries LONG before Le Grand became visible on the radar. Apparently you're not satisfied with his physical description on the murder scene. Not that I'm willing or trying to convince you of anything. To each their own opinion.

Didn't realise Estonian was a sub-tongue. I would have guessed an affinity with Polish.

Completely different, Lynn. Polish is close to the slavic languages, though the Poles today don't even wanna hear about this (for obvious reasons).

THIS is minimalist Ripperology :

This is the sweetest!

[lynn cates]

year

Hello Debs. 1889?

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

THIS is minimalist Ripperology :

[Debra A]

Hello Debs. Surely, between those two dates?

Cheers.
LC

Maybe, Lynn. But it doesn't include September does it?

[lynn cates]

Estonian

Hello Christer. Thanks. Yes, Finno-Ugric. Didn't realise Estonian was a sub-tongue. I would have guessed an affinity with Polish.

Cheers.
LC

[caz]

Wow, cool that Caz was the "inventor“ of the term “minimalist Ripperology“ (even if initially used in a whole another meaning).

Maria, I do wish you wouldn't twist people's words. I did not claim to be the "inventor" so don't put that word in direct speech marks to imply that I did.

And there's no "if" about it; I have always used the term "in a whole another meaning", as you put it. I realise that English is not your first language so I try to make allowances but really, if you don't fully understand what someone is saying, or what they mean, ask before you blunder in and waste their time trying to correct your faux pas.

'Minimalist ripperology' ought to be a tautology if you are using it in the sense of studying the written record in its entirety and not adding to it, taking away from it or otherwise buggering about with it, just to fit one's own subjective views on the case. That's what ripperology should be in 2012. My initial use of the term (before you stepped in) was for theorists who toss everything out with the bathwater, only to replace it with a baby that has no visible support.

When you and Tom tossed out the grapes, and you tossed out Schwartz's account as bogus, that was how I saw ripper 'minimalism' at work on a smaller scale. They got in the way of your 'Grand' plan so they had to go.

Just in case this confuses you further, I don't have a problem with anyone who has reasonable doubts about the grapes or reservations about Schwartz's account, based purely on what the historical record says about both; my problem is when an agenda is showing that has considerably less going for it than what is being discarded.

Le Grand has to be conjured up on Berner Street first, if that's the agenda, before you can start arguing what else can stay and what must go.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Lynn:

"Hungarian is more like Finnish and possibly Basque because those are the only 3 European languages which are not Indo-European family. They are all Dravidian languages."

Actually, Lynn, there are a few languages belonging to the so called Finno-Ugric language group, namely Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian and the language spoken by the lapps.

The best,
Fisherman

[caz]

Thankyou Caz.
Its not like that possibility had not crossed my mind, though I have never seen that in print anywhere. I would've expected Packer to have mentioned selling both that night if that had truly been the case.
Who knows, if Packers police statement had survived we'd have had a better handle on what he really said to them.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Jon,

I agree if Packer sold grapes and cachous at the same time to the same couple, but he might not have made the association if a man on his own, or Stride on her own, had bought cachous from him at some earlier time.

Love,

Caz
X

[Errata]

Thanks so much Errata for explaining about the different Yiddish dialects.
Personally I tend to believe that Schwartz was Austro-Hungarian, due to the newspapers'/police reports mentioning the fact and the translator as such unanimously.

Evidently I lied about Litvish being the only surviving dialect. Wikipedia says that the other two Eastern Yiddish dialects are still spoken, but I've never heard them. Now evidently I've read Polyish, because Yiddish Theater was in Polyish, but given that I can read Hebrew the way I can read Swahili (which is to say I can pronounce it, but I don't even a little know the language) I can't tell you how different it was from Litvish.

Western Yiddish is very dead however.

I distinctly recall spending years and years complaining about how learning Hebrew was a total waste of my time since I would never use it past my Bat Mitzvah. I was not wrong.

[mariab]

That's because Hungarian is closer to Finnish that any of it's neighboring languages.

Hello Rob, Maria, Errata. Hungarian is more like Finnish and possibly Basque because those are the only 3 European languages which are not Indo-European family. They are all Dravidian languages.

Interesting. I should consult my new friend, Prof. Jerry Sadock at the UofC, who's an international authority in both Yiddish and Western Icelandic Eskimo. :-) He's the one who checked all "Schwartz" lookalike words I'd located in the AFs. Though phonetically Finnish and Hungarian don't sound much like each other. I should know, I lived for years (here in Berlin) with a Finn roommate and I hang all the time with Finnish Pro snowboarders. Actually my own name sounds kinda Finnish, cuz of all the "i"s in there. (Like “Aki Kaurismaaki“, "Anttii Auttii", "Mattii Salminen", etc.)

Thanks so much Errata for explaining about the different Yiddish dialects.
Personally I tend to believe that Schwartz was Austro-Hungarian, due to the newspapers'/police reports mentioning the fact and the translator as such unanimously.
By the by, sources-wise I have a REAL problem for my article, cuz the Paris Archives Nationales seem to have lost the one secret police file from 1902 which mentioned Schwartz as a "Polish/Hungarian" when they were in the process of copying it for me last spring!! Michel Lesure (the book Debs sent me via you, Lynn) mentions the file in question, but NOT its exact content. I'll be looking for the document again, maybe even contact Lesure himself, and it's not the first time that the French misplace documents. I still have reports about the Schwartz orator not speaking in English though.