Forensic linguist & Jonbenet Ransom study group

[Holdontoyourhat]

Tad,

Have you done X-Bar R?

Some people actually think another writer/author took over, although I see no evidence of this and McM would've trapped that in an INSTANT.

X-Bar R might show that.

 

[voynich]

Whether JR intended to disguise his writing or not, there is enough differences to get a broad agreement among handwriting experts that even with intentional attempt at disguise and using a sharpie, he could be ruled out as the author.

If PR wrote it, she obviously intended to disguise her handwriting, and making a handwriting match to disguised handwriting written using a sharpie is a rather uncertain enterprise.

But she would not have known how to disguise certain linguistic stylistic markers, since the subject was still not widely known. It stretches credibility to think she would be aware of the need to disguise both her handwriting and her stylistic linguistic markers. Gerald has shown that these markers are sufficiently different to rule her out as the author.

 

[voynich]

honestly tadpole I don't know how to interpret your information in a way that determines whether PR wrote it.

 

[voynich]

Because at this rate, you're doing it all for me!

If you will not Turn then you will be destroyed.

 

[voynich]

Here is an absolute analysis of the RN written by the most accurate handwriting expert in the WORLD....ME.

Patsy wrote the note.

have you posted your evidence online?

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Whether JR intended to disguise his writing or not, there is enough differences to get a broad agreement among handwriting experts that even with intentional attempt at disguise and using a sharpie, he could be ruled out as the author.

If PR wrote it, she obviously intended to disguise her handwriting, and making a handwriting match to disguised handwriting written using a sharpie is a rather uncertain enterprise.

But she would not have known how to disguise certain linguistic stylistic markers, since the subject was still not widely known. It stretches credibility to think she would be aware of the need to disguise both her handwriting and her stylistic linguistic markers. Gerald has shown that these markers are sufficiently different to rule her out as the author.

Is spelling a subset of stylistic linguistic markers?

If not, then she would have to disguise her handwriting, spelling, AND stylistic markers.

RDI-speak: Oh, everybody knows PR was a linguistic acrobat. Didn't you know that?

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Tadpole, you've given me a great idea.

What if the ransom note wasn't the only document ever written by the ransom note author? What sort of statstical analysis could be applied to compare the two documents for correlation?

 

[voynich]

Is spelling a subset of stylistic linguistic markers?

If not, then she would have to disguise her handwriting, spelling, AND stylistic markers.

RDI-speak: Oh, everybody knows PR was a linguistic acrobat. Didn't you know that?

10.3 Findings: Qualitative

The questioned ransom letter contains many markers of style that contrast with the known writings of John and Patricia Ramsey. A contrast of the ransom note vis-à-vis John Ramsey’s known request writings demonstrates
15 stylistic differences, as outlined in Figure 10.3. The contrast of the ransom note to Patricia Ramsey’s known request writings shows 18 stylistic differ- ences, as seen in Figure 10.4. It is also clear that John and Patricia Ramsey’s respective known request writings are very different from one another, thereby necessitating separate contrasts to the questioned letter.
There are five style-markers that the Ramseys share and which also con- trast to the questioned letter. The respective summary lists of the style- markers appearing in Figures 10.3 and 10.4 demonstrate forms in the known request writings altogether different from those that appear in the questioned ransom letter. Specific variables with their contrasting variants in the ques- tioned letter and Mrs. Ramsey’s known request writings may be seen in Figures 10.5 (spelling), 10.6 (capitalization and punctuation), 10.7 (word formation), and 10.8 (money amounts).
​

Dave, come to your senses, the intruder who wrote this was evil!

 

[Tadpole12]

Whether JR intended to disguise his writing or not, there is enough differences to get a broad agreement among handwriting experts that even with intentional attempt at disguise and using a sharpie, he could be ruled out as the author.

If PR wrote it, she obviously intended to disguise her handwriting, and making a handwriting match to disguised handwriting written using a sharpie is a rather uncertain enterprise.

But she would not have known how to disguise certain linguistic stylistic markers, since the subject was still not widely known. It stretches credibility to think she would be aware of the need to disguise both her handwriting and her stylistic linguistic markers. Gerald has shown that these markers are sufficiently different to rule her out as the author.

Hi voynich.

Maybe forensic linguistics was not a widely known field at that time, but maybe by chance the method of her alterations succeeded. Anyone can bastardize a language; I refer you to my posts ... ha

no, voynich, I know it is a stretch, but to eliminate that possibility, to examine and find no pattern that could be indicative of the Ramseys guilt, that would be the objective.

For it has now become a fantastical projection that the Ramseys authored the rn, given that the distribution of the IDI dna is typical of a sexual assault.

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Tad--

I believe McM states the RN is so long, has so many words, that for someone to by chance copy the stylistic markers and NOT be the original author is astronomically remote.

 

[Tadpole12]

Tadpole, you've given me a great idea.

What if the ransom note wasn't the only document ever written by the ransom note author? What sort of statstical analysis could be applied to compare the two documents for correlation?

Hi Hotyh.

You could use the same methodology as outlined in McMenamin's study.

 

[voynich]

Hi voynich.

Maybe forensic linguistics was not a widely known field at that time, but maybe by chance the method of her alterations succeeded. Anyone can bastardize a language; I refer you to my posts ... ha

no, voynich, I know it is a stretch, but to eliminate that possibility, to examine and find no pattern that could be indicative of the Ramseys guilt, that would be the objective.

For it has now become a fantastical projection that the Ramseys authored the rn, given that the distribution of the IDI dna is typical of a sexual assault.

Good point, you're a diamond in the rough

Supposedly though PR did not do a good enough job to disguise her handwriting to fool Gideon Epstein, but good enough job to disguise her handwriting to fool Gerald McMerman.

So did PR attempt at a disguise or not? Isn't the first thing to come to mind in a disguise is disguising the handwriting?

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Hi Hotyh.

You could use the same methodology as outlined in McMenamin's study.

I was referring to sentence lengths, words, vocabulary. Not style, spelling, capitalization.

 

[voynich]

Tad--

I believe McM states the RN is so long, has so many words, that for someone to by chance copy the stylistic markers and NOT be the original author is astronomically remote.

I would agree with this, but McM also explains the population

Since observation of the differences between the questioned letter in evi- dence and Mrs. Ramsey’s known writings indicates that an association does not exist between them, the reference writings of Mrs. Ramsey are used at this point only to provide alternate variants (variant number 2 in following figures) for stylistic variables found in the ransom letter. What is measured is the significance of a potential association between the stylistic profile of the questioned letter and the writing of any other writer, Mrs. Ramsey included.
For purposes of this analysis, the American Writing Project (see Chapter 9) made available a subcorpus of writings from Colorado. The sub- corpus contains 338 pieces of writing, each representing a separate writer. Subsets of typed writings (197) and hand-writings (141) were identified, but these were combined for the analysis of most stylistic variables. The purpose of studying a set of Colorado writings was to determine how often a matching profile could be expected to occur in a population of Colorado writers, i.e., in a corpus of writing most likely reflecting the speech community of the author of the ransom note. This requires that three things be determined: the relative frequency of occurrence of each style marker, the degree of independence of each style variable, and an estimate of their joint probability of occurrence.
​

 

[voynich]

Hi voynich.
rn, given that the distribution of the IDI dna is typical of a sexual assault.

Dave, you will not stop me. Darth Tadpole will become more powerful than either of us. :crazy:

It's not only that DNA was found but found where we would expect in a sexual assault, and not in other locations that would be likely if it was an "innocent transfer"

 

[Tadpole12]

honestly tadpole I don't know how to interpret your information in a way that determines whether PR wrote it.

Hi voynich.

No there's no way to determine that,
just that within the rn there is that pattern of distribution .... and a consistency in that pattern, suggesting one writer?

 

[voynich]

Hi voynich.

No there's no way to determine that,
just that within the rn there is that pattern of distribution .... and a consistency in that pattern, suggesting one writer?

I think the handwriting alone suggests one writer

 

[Tadpole12]

Tad--

I believe McM states the RN is so long, has so many words, that for someone to by chance copy the stylistic markers and NOT be the original author is astronomically remote.

Hey Hotyh .... the chance n markers appearing within a population would be 1 in x.

but if the markers were artificially created, then the odds of them being represented in a popultion, would be astronomically remote, as well.





I was referring to sentence lengths words, vocabulary. Not style, spelling, capitalization. - Hotyh

http://books.google.ca/books?id=i33...esult&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

check out Morton's application, and the Cusum analysis. p 16, 17, 18
ie number of two and three letter words.

 

[voynich]

Hey Hotyh .... the chance n markers appearing within a population would be 1 in x.

but if the markers were artificially created, then the odds of them being represented in a popultion, would be astronomically remote, as well.





I was referring to sentence lengths words, vocabulary. Not style, spelling, capitalization. - Hotyh

http://books.google.ca/books?id=i33...esult&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

check out Morton's application, and the Cusum analysis. p 16, 17, 18
ie number of two and three letter words.

what's your academic background?

If you use Morton's and Cusum analysis what conclusions do you draw, if the null hypothesis is that the sentence length, words used, vocabulary falls within PR's range, and rejecting the null hypothesis at 95% confidence interval (variation in RN exceeds PR's) what conclusion do you draw?

Fail to reject null hypotheiss "PR could have written the RN"
Reject the null hypothesis "Observed Cusum analysis of RN is outside PR's known samples"

 

[Holdontoyourhat]

Hey Hotyh .... the chance n markers appearing within a population would be 1 in x.

but if the markers were artificially created, then the odds of them being represented in a popultion, would be astronomically remote, as well.





I was referring to sentence lengths words, vocabulary. Not style, spelling, capitalization. - Hotyh

http://books.google.ca/books?id=i33...esult&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

check out Morton's application, and the Cusum analysis. p 16, 17, 18
ie number of two and three letter words.

Handwriting: subjective/qualitative
Statistics: objective/quantitative

Not sure if statistics can be applied to handwriting as well as it could be to words/expressions. IOW, if only word and expression choices are used, is this not more objective? How to compare two documents using only word and expression choices?

As if both were typed.