[Rich Goodale]

I know you mavens are having fun digging up snippets and boiling them with eyes of newts and dangling participles trying to conjure up some sorts of truth, but has anybody thought about employing modern computerized linguisitic techniques to compare unknown vs. known writings to see who is the most likely suspect?

Just wondering....

rich

[Joe Bausch]

I've looked for such computer programs Rich, but have not been able to find any. 

[Tom Naccarato]

I was relying more on J-PP to determine who was right and who was wrong.

[Dan Kelly]

I know you mavens are having fun digging up snippets and boiling them with eyes of newts and dangling participles trying to conjure up some sorts of truth, but has anybody thought about employing modern computerized linguisitic techniques to compare unknown vs. known writings to see who is the most likely suspect?

Just wondering....

rich

Rich, ForkaForkaB, ForkaJean-Paul Parodi --

I haven't read any of those threads -- but here's what I'd be just wondering....

Absent an original manuscript, how does anyone know, ever, that a writer's published words were, in fact, the writer's words ... and not his (or, or course, her) editor's words?

(Answer: No one ever does. I wasn't truly wondering.)

I can assure you: Some articles, in print, bear only the faintest resemblance to the manuscripts on which they are based.

Dan (always Dan)

[Rich Goodale]

I've looked for such computer programs Rich, but have not been able to find any. 

Joe

Maybe Dan Kelly could chip in.  He might know.

Tommy

As you know, Jean-Paul knows the answer, but has been forbidden to tell anybody by ukase of the most recetn ulema of the power that currently be.

rfg

[Dan Kelly]

Maybe Dan Kelly could chip in.  He might know.

Dan Kelly did (above). Dan Kelly doesn't.

(Dan Kelly suddenly remembers Herschel Walker!)

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks, Dan.

I'm a platform-diving "mom" for the next 3 hours, so I'll try in that time to absorb (and unlikelyly make sense of) that Herschel Walker reference.

Peace and love

The Vet

[Dan Kelly]

Thanks, Dan.

I'm a platform-diving "mom" for the next 3 hours, so I'll try in that time to absorb (and unlikelyly make sense of) that Herschel Walker reference.

Peace and love

The Vet

I'll save you the headache.

Typical exchange:

Reporter to Herschel Walker: "What do you think of the Vikings' prospects this year?"

Herschel Walker: "Herschel Walker thinks that if Herschel Walker gets the ball in his hands often enough, Herschel Walker could carry this team...."

[Phil_the_Author]

One person whose name we can definitely identify with a column written by "Our Foreign Correspondent" is Henry Leach. We can do this because he signed them with his name at the end of a number of these. Examples can be found in the June, August & December 1913 issues to name just a few.

One bit of irony to this discussion can also be found ina very short note on the bottom of page 33 of the May 1915 issue. It states:

"ANONYMITY - If 'Duffer will send us his name and address - not for publication - we will publish his letter - But we do not recognize any anonymous communications."

[Ken Moum]

Thanks, Dan.

I'm a platform-diving "mom" for the next 3 hours, so I'll try in that time to absorb (and unlikelyly make sense of) that Herschel Walker reference.

Peace and love

The Vet

Sure, but when you get down to it, what "Bo knows" is all that's really important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Knows

Ken

I'll save you the headache.

Typical exchange:

Reporter to Herschel Walker: "What do you think of the Vikings' prospects this year?"

Herschel Walker: "Herschel Walker thinks that if Herschel Walker gets the ball in his hands often enough, Herschel Walker could carry this team...."

[Peter Pallotta]

Rich -

Yes, every once in a very rare while, a post comes along that is such the proto-typical and ideal example of a given poster's style and substance that we can truly say the poster and his post are one.   (Or, as Jean-Paul Parodi might say: Le style est l'homme.)  I refer to Dan Kelly, and his post #3 on this thread.  A perfect, jewel-like "Dan Kellyism".  Note especially the parenthetical aside: "Answer: No one ever does. I wasn't truly wondering."  Who else, I ask, could have crafted that? 

Yes, Dan Kelly could write under any number of strange and fictitious names, but a post like that -- with its parenthetical asides; with its precise language, and grammar -- will always screan (scream!) Dan Kelly.

I am becoming a better writer just being in the same room with him (if that is not giving myself airs).

Peter   

[TEPaul]

""ANONYMITY - If 'Duffer will send us his name and address - not for publication - we will publish his letter - But we do not recognize any anonymous communications."


Philip Young:

Pretty fascinating and apparently little known (or considered) inclusion. Can we follow up a bit more on that one?

If I'm reading the basic intent of that quote correctly it would seem this "pen name" thing really was a "game" and apparently a pretty humorous one on the part of its purveyors from AG or whatever the periodical was!

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

That is the only mention of both "Duffer" and his letter. Without it one can't surmise the reason, content or person behind any of it.

Of course, one who is simply looking to make connections might say that they knew his name... B.C. Tillinghast who was clearly identified as the pen name "Duffer" who wrote the poetry in "Hazards" articles...

[Mark Bourgeois]

Forensic linguistics was suggested more than a year ago and someone even supplied the name of the Cornell U expert who used the technique to finger Joe Klein as Anonymous.

It got a few harrumphs but apparently no action.

[Neil_Crafter]

I suppose it is only appropriate to post under a nom-de-plume on a thread about nom-de-plumes!

[Mark Bourgeois]

On ne sais jamais, M. Crafter!

[Rich Goodale]

Forensic linguistics was suggested more than a year ago and someone even supplied the name of the Cornell U expert who used the technique to finger Joe Klein as Anonymous.

It got a few harrumphs but apparently no action.

Jean-Paul L'Imposteur

'Twas a Vassar Professor.  There are some guys at Oxford who have taken the technology a lot further, but I doubt that "Far and Sure" would be of little interest to them when "William Shakespeare" is still up for grabs!

ForkB, Comte de Parodi

[Andrew Mitchell]

Forensic linguistics was suggested more than a year ago and someone even supplied the name of the Cornell U expert who used the technique to finger Joe Klein as Anonymous.

It got a few harrumphs but apparently no action.

Jean-Paul L'Imposteur

'Twas a Vassar Professor.  There are some guys at Oxford who have taken the technology a lot further, but I doubt that "Far and Sure" would be of little interest to them when "William Shakespeare" is still up for grabs!

ForkB, Comte de Parodi

Talking to yourself now Jean Paul/Rich?

That is worrying

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