For the purpose of this thread I’d request that all of us put aside all questions of earlier or later times of death. I’d also ask that we put aside what has always been assumed to have been the case and simply give opinions based on the wording alone.
I ask that we look at two sentences from the inquest testimony of Albert Cadosch (taken from The Telegraph):
“It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29. I, however, cannot say on which side it came from.”
This has traditionally been taken to have meant that Cadosch was saying that he couldn’t be certain which side of his yard that the “no” came from and that it could either have been from number 29 or from number 25 but is that really what he meant?
The language is clumsy. A more natural way of expressing this I’d suggest would be something more along the lines of “It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of number 29. I can’t be sure though.” I want to suggest an alternative meaning which I believe conforms more accurately to what he’d said.
I suggest that what Cadosch might actually have meant was - I think that it came from the yard of number 29 but I can’t be certain from which side of that yard it came.
So that rather than the suggestion that he was saying that the “no” might have come from number 29 or from number 25 he could have been saying that he thought it came from number 29 but he couldn’t be sure whether it came from the number 27 side or the number 31 side of that yard. I think that this better fits the wording of his inquest testimony.
Why couldn’t this have been what he actually meant?
I ask that we look at two sentences from the inquest testimony of Albert Cadosch (taken from The Telegraph):
“It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of No. 29. I, however, cannot say on which side it came from.”
This has traditionally been taken to have meant that Cadosch was saying that he couldn’t be certain which side of his yard that the “no” came from and that it could either have been from number 29 or from number 25 but is that really what he meant?
The language is clumsy. A more natural way of expressing this I’d suggest would be something more along the lines of “It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of number 29. I can’t be sure though.” I want to suggest an alternative meaning which I believe conforms more accurately to what he’d said.
I suggest that what Cadosch might actually have meant was - I think that it came from the yard of number 29 but I can’t be certain from which side of that yard it came.
So that rather than the suggestion that he was saying that the “no” might have come from number 29 or from number 25 he could have been saying that he thought it came from number 29 but he couldn’t be sure whether it came from the number 27 side or the number 31 side of that yard. I think that this better fits the wording of his inquest testimony.
Why couldn’t this have been what he actually meant?
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