Tumblety: The Hidden Truth

[c.d.]

"I'm still trying to get over micro penis"

Maybe the court records contain a thumbnail sketch of one.

Maybe but I'm not sure the evidence will stand up in court.

c.d.

[Robert]

"I'm still trying to get over micro penis"

Maybe the court records contain a thumbnail sketch of one.

[Ally]

I'm still trying to get over micro penis

I'm sorry. I hear they're doing great things with plastic surgery nowadays. Don't lose hope.

[Abby Normal]

I'm still trying to get over micro penis

[Ally]

So, in other words, he remembered, at the time, what Tumblety had said to him in the past?

"remembered" is the correct word isn't it? "knew" or "know" just isn't right.

Ding ding! Thank you! That was a much less awkward and much more succinct way of saying what my fried brain was taking way too long and way too many words to try and come up with. It's not linguistically right if you try and make it refer to what happened in a previous event.

[Steadmund Brand]

I do think that he (or the person trying to write it out as it was being spoken) was linguistically incompetent....you see it with other testimony...even in other parts of Norris's ....

Robert...another great point...why I again say we can't know because we can't ask him to clarify

Steadmund Brand

[David Orsam]

The meaning yes....I read it as he remembered at the time...but said know, as in "I knew at the time.. that in the past he has said"

So, in other words, he remembered, at the time, what Tumblety had said to him in the past?

"remembered" is the correct word isn't it? "knew" or "know" just isn't right.

[Robert]

Unfortunately we can't now hear the way Norris said it. "If he had his way they would all be disembowelled" - taken in isolation, it could be pre-Ripper or post-Ripper. But "If he had his way they would all be disembowelled" - definitely post-Ripper.

[Ally]

Except once again you then have to believe that in the midst of this, he suddenly becomes a complete linguistic incompetent, and at the very key and important passage can't string together a coherent or grammatical sentence. Because the way you want to try and twist the wording to mean, makes literally no linguistic sense.

You want us to believe that for some reason he had to refer back and in a completely convoluted, contorted fashion to remind us that he knew what he had just told us he knew. But not actually say it, just use "it" to refer back to a subject from a preceding sentence instead of the "it" referring to the natural antecedent in the sentence it was in.

So he just suddenly loses all linguistic ability? In that one key sentence? See part of the problem we were having is Norris looked like an idiot, because we were looking at this sentence with the Not in it and the sentence made no sense. Except there never was a Not in there and when you read it as it would have been spoken the sentence actually makes perfect sense. Unless of course you start trying to twist it all out of fashion to fit a predetermined idea.

The grammar of the sentence doesn't support the supposition that this took place at two different times. The "it" has a natural antecedent and that is the knowledge of the WC murders. That's the sentence it's in. It just doesn't make sense when you try to establish the "it" as him vaguely and weirdly referring to the previous knowledge Tumblety had told him years before AND not establishing that it had occurred years before. And you can't twist it to make it fit that supposition. Norris speaks in a winding, southern fashion but his stories are generally, when spoken aloud clear and easy to follow. They make sense. There's pauses and phrases, as would happen in normal speech, but by and large, it makes sense.

It doesn't make sense that he would just suddenly stop making all sense in this one key sentence. He doesn't. It makes perfect sense. It all happened at once, and it happened as a whole.

[Steadmund Brand]

The meaning yes....I read it as he remembered at the time...but said know, as in "I knew at the time.. that in the past he has said"

I think every word that is there should be....as is, because I am not looking to take anything out or add anything, all I am saying is that none of us were there, so nobody can state with certainty as to what was intended...we can all draw our own conclusions and be open to them because there is no way to know for sure...

This is what makes for good talk....and why "Case Closed" is so mocked and laughed at in this field of study

Steadmund Brand

[David Orsam]

He said they should be disemboweled (in 1881), now I read about the Whitechapel murders (in 1888-1889) and I did know at the time (at the time I knew he had said they should be disemboweled).....see I agree the "not" shouldn't be there.....

Well in which case you presumably think the word "know" shouldn't really be there because what you think he was actually trying to say was: "I did remember [what he told me eight years earlier] at the time". Is that right?

[Steadmund Brand]

Like i said...i read it as "I knew at the time" meaning...
"I knew at the time I read that, that Tumblety had said in the past he thought they should be disemboweled".....again....remember I never said this was a fact, that he meant that, only that when I first read it that is what I interpreted his meaning.....it's a possibility....as is he confuses the years, as is the stenographer messed up....just a possibility....not sure as I wasn't there and can't ask him to clarify ��

Steadmund Brand

[Ally]

How did he know it at the time he said it if he said it in 1881 and the WC murders hadn't happened until 88?

I read of the WC murders and knew it at the time he said it... in 81?

[Steadmund Brand]

I just figured out where the confusion (in my take) is.....I do NOT!!! think the "not" should be in the statement.....Mike and I disagree on that....so in one sense I agree with you Ally....but you were misrepresenting what I said (I think unintentionally because you assumed I was agreeing with/defensing Mike) ...Abby was close.....how I read it is ....

He said they should be disemboweled (in 1881), now I read about the Whitechapel murders (in 1888-1889) and I did know at the time (at the time I knew he had said they should be disemboweled).....see I agree the "not" shouldn't be there.....

Now Ally be nice and apologize for misrepresenting what I had said ( this is me not "they"....remember this is why Mike and I work together...because we don't always agree...as in this case)...after all I am as delicate a flower as you are ��.....by the way...how is your head? Feeling any better

Steadmund Brand

[David Orsam]

Yes. My way Noris confused the year it happened. Not specifically that it was exactly in 1888 but it was post-1888 and not in 1881.

Their way, IT happened in two separate years and if you add a not and make thesentence completely not-grammatical, and ignore the second half of what he says and then add in an unvoiced but we know it happened time jump of eight years between sentence 1 and sentence 2....it all matches the theory.

Because that makes more sense than just Norris got his year mixed up.

But yes. You've got the gist of it.

Jolly good!

I put 1888 in by way of example because I was thinking most of the discussion about him being JTR in the US press was in the papers in November/December 1888 but I'm sure it continued into 1889 and beyond.

Yes I agree that your way makes a lot more sense without the "not" which I guess is why Mike felt it needed to be added.

And it is, as I have mentioned earlier, a little strange that Norris then apparently goes from 1888 (or post 1888) all the way back to 1880/1881 without missing a beat in the story or marking the change.