ERDNASE

Discuss general aspects of Genii.
Roger M.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 12:42 am

I'm 5'9", and anybody who's 6'1" definitely looks noticeably down on me ... as I'm quite aware I'm craning my neck upward to look said 6'1" person in the eye.

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lybrary
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 12:43 am

Bob Coyne wrote:That's not exactly what Smith said. Smith was not speaking like a mathematician in terms of inequalities. What he actually said: I think this fellow was about 5'6", at most 5'7". Could be he was 5'5". And this was in response to Gardner pushing the 6' 1 1/2" MFA. So Smith was sticking to his guns of 5' 6" but allowing that he could have been an inch taller or shorter, but certainly not tall like MFA. Your best estimate for Gallaway is 5'2" based on the perspective in the photo. That's off by 4 inches. Even your high end, inferior "wingspan" estimate is off by 2 inches.
Again you are wrong. The first statement by Smith was:
Not over 5’ 6".
That was his first and therefore most credible statement. Your quote is from much later after Gardner worked on him to push him higher, which is not credible. And you preach about intellectual honesty. Yeah, right.

My estimate from photos are 5'2" and 5'4" but since they are estimates from photos there is ~2-3" confidence interval. Gallaway's stature is completely in line with Smith, because we do not know his lower limit.
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Roger M.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 12:48 am

lybrary wrote:That was his first and therefore most credible statement. Your quote is from much later after Gardner worked on him to push him higher, which is not credible. And you preach about intellectual honesty. Yeah, right.


You're so predictable Chris, it's almost too funny!

Actually the correct way to phrase what you're trying to twist about (as you always do) is to simply say that the statement Smith made that indicates that Erdnase was 5'5" to 5'7" is, for all intents and purposes, Smiths final word on the issue of the height of S.W. Erdnase.

In other words, after being asked by Gardner to think about it in depth ... Smith notes that Erdnase was between 5'5" and 5'7".
(Apply your own error margin as you feel inclined to apply it.)

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 12:53 am

Roger M. wrote:5'3" is getting a bit too short not to specifically comment that the guy was bordering on a midget
In other words a very small man as Smith said, with very small hands as Erdnase describes himself. My bad, I forget that you are all so intellectually honest, so fair, so objective evaluators of information. :roll:
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Roger M.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 12:58 am

lybrary wrote:Again you are wrong.


This is where you loose all credibility in this thread Chris, and it's a shame.
Bob is actually 100% correct ... and you bloody well know it.

I don't know who you think you're fooling with your endless twisting and massaging of every single post you write, but I suspect you're thinking long term, and have somehow convinced yourself that you're writing "for the ages", and that somewhere, somehow - far down the road some unknown person will look back on this thread and give you credit for discovering Erdnase.

I've long suspected this is your true, and only motivation ... and that it's combined with an endless marketing campaign to try and sell your e-book (and other knick-knacks) and the the above, combined with your over the top hubris is all that keeps bringing you back to this thread.
In reality, you havn't brought anything at all new in any of your posts for ages ... choosing instead to post on an almost daily basis only insults, and misguided (and often just plain wrong) comments and statements designed to bolster your long ago debunked Gallaway theory.
Last edited by Roger M. on April 19th, 2018, 1:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 12:59 am

Roger M. wrote:In other words, after being asked by Gardner to think about it in depth ... Smith notes that Erdnase was between 5'5" and 5'7".
That was not at all what happened. Gardner didn't ask him to think neutrally about it. He presented him with too tall MFA and pushed and pleaded with Smith to reconsider his recollections to make MFA fit. That is one way to create false memories, but more importantly it is a completely biased way. Smith probably felt sorry for the poor Gardner and went up by an inch just to please him. It has nothing to do with an unbiased revisiting of his opinion.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 1:03 am

Roger M. wrote:In reality, you havn't brought anything at all new in any of your posts for ages ... choosing instead to post on an almost daily basis only insults, and misguided (and often just plain wrong) comments and statements designed to bolster your long ago debunked Gallaway theory.
And you haven't posted anything new ever. The Gallaway case is getting better every week. We just learned that grooms didn't wear any wedding bands back then. That made Gallaway's case better. We learned that Erdnase had to read German magic books, which made Gallaway's case a lot better. You were out of the game for long. You should catch up.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 19th, 2018, 1:11 am

lybrary wrote: You reject the input from domain experts in areas you know little about,

Which expert are you speaking of here? Olsson has said that the samples from Gallaway are written more like Expert that the samples from Wilson, Roterberg, and Hilliar, and the very poorly selected samples from Sanders. I, for one, don't reject that conclusion. I do, however, reject how you've exaggerated the conclusion into proof of Gallaway being Erdnase, and given that the Sanders samples were so poorly chosen, I reject that his studies have disproved Sanders as a candidate.

Jack Shalom wrote:
The expert linguist with decades of experience in the authorship attribution area Dr. Olsson thinks Gallaway writes very much like Erdnase, as do several who have posted here to this forum.

I would think that an expert linguistic analysis would also need an expert understanding of the work being investigated.

This here is why it is easy to be skeptical of Olsson's conclusions. While he may be an expert in linguistics, he clearly is not an expert in Erdnase, and has made basic errors of process and interpretation resulting from that, thus reducing the confidence some of us would place in his conclusions (although, to be sure, some of these errors may well should be placed at your feet, rather than his). For example, he says "The man who was Erdnase by Martin Gardner", and later refers to it as "Gardner's book". Gardner was one of three co-authors, and anyone who has actually read it would realize that the vast majority of the writing is by Busby and Whaley.

Your arrogance is mind boggling.

Pot, kettle . . .

By the way, Chris, I note that you sarcastically refer to me as a "genius" in your newsletter. If you want to be personally insulting to me in print, do it here where I can respond. It's pretty cowardly of you to do it in a forum where I can't reply.

Further, you misstated my argument:
This is a good example that one has to be careful taking today's norms and experiences and applying them to the time of Erdnase. For example, the resident Genii forum 'genius' Bill Mullins has argued repeatedly against Gallaway's German background and influence, for example that Erdnase would not have been pronounced like a German would pronounce it.

If you read the post where I made that point, it's very clear that I was not taking today's norms and experiences, I was taking norms and experiences contemporary (1906) to Erdnase.
Last edited by Bill Mullins on April 19th, 2018, 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

Roger M.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 1:12 am

lybrary wrote: He presented him with too tall MFA and pushed and pleaded with Smith to reconsider his recollections to make MFA fit.


Sigh .... that's not at all what happened.

Gardner was in a letter exchange with Smith, and over a lengthy period of time - 1946 to 1953. The letters were sometimes sporadic, with breaks of many months in between some exchanges.

It's difficult, if not completely impossible to "push and plead" (your words) with somebody as you propose Gardner did with Smith, when we're talking about less than a dozen letters, exchanged over a 7 year period.
Granted Gardner also had some personal contact with Smith, but with Dai Vernon and Fawcett Ross et al in attendance as well, and a magic conference going on in the background, it would seem that any discussion about the height of Erdnase was long over.

Roger M.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 1:16 am

lybrary wrote:
Roger M. wrote:In reality, you havn't brought anything at all new in any of your posts for ages ... choosing instead to post on an almost daily basis only insults, and misguided (and often just plain wrong) comments and statements designed to bolster your long ago debunked Gallaway theory.
And you haven't posted anything new ever. The Gallaway case is getting better every week. We just learned that grooms didn't wear any wedding bands back then. That made Gallaway's case better. We learned that Erdnase had to read German magic books, which made Gallaway's case a lot better. You were out of the game for long. You should catch up.


When you're literally the only person in a 160 page web forum thread that thinks Gallaway is Erdnase ... it's probably time to give your head a shake - or at the very least trim back the insults directed at folks that are really only trying to tell you as politely as possible that you're ..... well......the only guy in a 160 page thread that thinks Gallaway is Erdnase.

Gallaway is not Erdnase Chris, and I suspect deep down ... you already know that.

Roger M.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 1:20 am

I must say too, that I have a deep admiration for Chris's endless tenacity.

I certainly couldn't keep up a charade for as long as Chris has kept his charade up without going completely bonkers.

Credit where credit is due!

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 1:36 am

lybrary wrote:And you haven't posted anything new ever.


Oh now that's just nasty Chris :o

Mmmmm, well I did do this one morning over a cup of coffee, in about 45 minutes (be sure to read all the way to the end of the thread):

viewtopic.php?t=37909

I guess the point is, when I do choose to do something *new*, I don't make [censored] up and try and claim superiority ... but I do share any new finds in a friendly manner here in the forum with others who are often interested in the same subject matter.
Last edited by Roger M. on April 19th, 2018, 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 1:39 am

lybrary wrote: And you preach about intellectual honesty. Yeah, right.

This is a very telling quote. I don't think I've ever preached about or even mentioned intellectual honesty. One wonders what other misreadings you regularly make.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » April 19th, 2018, 1:48 am

Bob Coyne wrote:
lybrary wrote: And you preach about intellectual honesty. Yeah, right.

This is a very telling quote. I don't think I've ever preached about or even mentioned intellectual honesty. One wonders what other misreadings you regularly make.


With Chris being the almost perfect textbook example of absolutely guilt-free and endless "intellectual dishonesty", his comment here really has to make one wonder what's going on up inside his noggin?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 19th, 2018, 2:23 am

lybrary wrote: We just learned that grooms didn't wear any wedding bands back then.

If this were true, we wouldn't see hundreds and hundreds of examples of the phrases "his wedding ring" and "double ring ceremony" and "ring for the groom" before 1910 in the Chronicling America database. We wouldn't be able to read the 1914 Sherlock Holmes story, "The Valley of Fear," in which a man's wedding ring is a plot point. The Ladies' Home Journal of May, 1892 wouldn't give this advice: "When two rings are used the bride pays for the groom's ring and the groom for the bride's. The bride puts the ring on the groom's finger at the altar." And we certainly wouldn't see this quote from the trade magazine The Jeweler's Circular of 8/6/1902: ""Here is a queer fact," pantingly exclaimed he, holding up his hand and indicating a gold ring on one of the fingers. "I see nothing strange in the fact of your wearing a gold finger-ring, even if it is a wedding-ring, as I imagine that to be," responded The Onlooker, after a casual glance at the object in question.""

You really need to be skeptical of your vaunted "domain experts;" some of them absolutely don't know what they are talking about.

But so what if men didn't wear wedding bands in 1901? Smith would have known this, and wouldn't have been looking for one when noticing signs that suggested Erdnase had a wife. The bottom line is that Smith did not see signs that Erdnase was married, and Gallaway was a relative newlywed. Whether or not rings were one of those signs at all back then is irrelevant -- Smith could have been referring to the conversation or other things.

Focus on the big picture. The only evidence about Erdnase's marriage is that he wasn't. Gallaway was. It takes a special kind of delusion to twist this into an argument that Gallaway is therefore the strongest candidate.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 19th, 2018, 10:05 am

lybrary wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:where did i say it would be ‘just as easy’ to find out if some one was a gambler 100 years ago as opposed to a writer?
Wonderful, then you agree with me. That was my point. It is much harder on average to find out if somebody was a gambler than if somebody was a writer. Now that you agree let's see if you can follow this thought. If we do not find any evidence of writing, which should be relatively easy to find, it is a bigger problem for a case than if we find no evidence of gambling, which one is less likely to find.


and here chris demonstrates he has more interest in semantic games and argument winning then in actually having a real discussion. once again you take what i didn’t say and use that to suggest i did say something.

you’re a dishonest fellow

i never said anything about anything being harder or easier. so if you can’t deal with arguments actually made and have to raise your own straw men, like with your ad hominem attacks, you reveal your case lacks substance.


Brad Henderson wrote:this idea that we would be able to find records of someone who was never known to be an author in their lifetime is utter nonsense. who would save such documents?
Now you confuse me. You were just arguing above that one ought to find records of gambling. But not of writing? And then you agreed that finding evidence of writing is easier than finding evidence of gambling. You are all over the place. I have no idea anymore what you are talking about. And you complain that Erdnase didn't explain clearly enough?


your confused because you see only what you want to see and any time something to the contrary appears you dismiss it.

many people write and have no records of said writing. why would we keep papers of people who aren’t famous writers? erdnase was never a famous writer.

but he was a well established gambler. so there should be records of having cards in his hands.

i never said it should be easier to find evidence of writing rather than gambling. That’s you misrepresenting someone because you are dishonest and know your case is weak.


Brad Henderson wrote:so if i understand it we have two candidates with writing experience and only one of which can we put a deck of cards into their hands - and you are willing to say anything to ignore that.
I am not ignoring it, but you are misinterpreting the facts. First, back then essentially everybody had a deck of cards in their hands, because card playing was everywhere. Second, Gallaway had a deck of cards in his hands because he was interested in card magic. He owned a copy of Expert. Third, having writing experience is the lowest possible hurdle for a candidate to take. After that comes the linguistic fingerprint. The writing should be similar to Erdnase.


how does having copy of a book prove he knew card tricks? especially since he worked at a printers shop and likely had tons of books fall into his hands.

and if someone had the degree of interest in card tricks erdnase had, you really think he’d have only a single book on the topic?????

let’s take a poll, how many of us here who like card tricks have just one book on it ?

as you think ‘possibilities’ are equal to evidence then perhaps the book was given to him as a gift? maybe he bought it
for a gift and never had the chance to deliver it? maybe he bought a collection and it was just part of it?

see, engaging in speculation is fun.

and you really expect us to accept your claim that everyone had decks of cards but only a handful of people had experience or need to write???????

you’re embarrassing yourself and the quest as a whole. you aren’t interested in finding erdnase. you’re interested in being the person who found him.

your tactics may work against the timid, but here they just make you look like a dick.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 10:29 am

I love it when I wake up and see that all my friends, Bill, Bob, Brad, Roger, Leonard, have responded to my messages. Thank you Leonard for mentioning my ebook. As a reminder it can be purchased here https://www.lybrary.com/the-hunt-for-er ... 73843.html The word on the street is that it is fantastic and reveals who Erdnase really was, but I am getting sidetracked.

Roger M. wrote:
lybrary wrote: He presented him with too tall MFA and pushed and pleaded with Smith to reconsider his recollections to make MFA fit.


Sigh .... that's not at all what happened.

Gardner was in a letter exchange with Smith, and over a lengthy period of time - 1946 to 1953. The letters were sometimes sporadic, with breaks of many months in between some exchanges.

It's difficult, if not completely impossible to "push and plead" (your words) with somebody as you propose Gardner did with Smith, when we're talking about less than a dozen letters, exchanged over a 7 year period.
Granted Gardner also had some personal contact with Smith, but with Dai Vernon and Fawcett Ross et al in attendance as well, and a magic conference going on in the background, it would seem that any discussion about the height of Erdnase was long over.
Let's check how wrong Roger is. Here are the relevant statements about height from the Gardner-Smith correspondence:
  • Andrews was a very small man of slight build. Not over 5’ 6".
  • Can you get a line on his height from the newspaper stories? I would say he wasn’t over 5’6" and quite slight, toward the dainty type.
  • Gardner cites from the police report: Age 31, weight 130 pounds, height 6 feet 1 ½ inches. ... The only thing about the above description that does not tally with your recollection is that he was a tall man instead of a small one. However, he was extremely thin. Is it possible that you would remember this excessive thiness [sic], and later remember it as smallness?
  • Height 6 ft 1 ½ inches. Can’t reconcile that height. That towering thin bean pole would have been his greatest characteristic and I believe I would never forget it. I would have had to look up to him and I’m certain I looked down. I think this fellow was about 5’6", at most 5'7". Could be he was 5’5".

Smith not only initially states “not over 5'6"” he confirms this a second time “wasn't over 5'6"”. Then Gardner goes to work on him suggesting that his thinness had Smith mis-remember it as smallness. Very creative guy that Gardner. And only then is Smith changing his upper bound to 5'7". The entire discussion is about the upper bound. Nowhere do they talk about the lower bound. This is not a credible way to get to a valid upper bound, nor is it a credible way to find the lower bound. Smith states twice not over 5'6". That is the credible number.

You can bend the truth and push Smith's number up, and you can bend the truth and push Sander's height down. But you will never make a 5'9" Sanders or even a 5'8" Sanders a very small man. Smith didn't merely say Erdnase was smaller than him. He didn't even say he was a small man. He said he was a very small man. On top Sanders has the wrong eye color and hair color.

Bill Mullins wrote:For example, he says "The man who was Erdnase by Martin Gardner", and later refers to it as "Gardner's book". Gardner was one of three co-authors, and anyone who has actually read it would realize that the vast majority of the writing is by Busby and Whaley.
How exactly does that affect his linguistic expertise and judgement? What does such an abbreviation/error, to not list all authors but only the most prominent and well known one, have to do with his work as linguist? Just because somebody makes a typo or a clerical error suddenly he can't be trusted anymore? By that measure, Bill, we can't trust you either, because you have made more than one error - and much more substantial ones for that matter - in your posts here.

Bill Mullins wrote:... it's very clear that I was not taking today's norms and experiences, I was taking norms and experiences contemporary (1906) to Erdnase.
You have no idea about the norms and experiences around Erdnase's time. There were half a million people of German descent in Chicago. It was the largest ethnic group there. German newspapers were published. Public addresses were held in German. You have not the slightest idea.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jackpot » April 19th, 2018, 10:30 am

Bob Coyne wrote:
lybrary wrote: And you preach about intellectual honesty. Yeah, right.

This is a very telling quote. I don't think I've ever preached about or even mentioned intellectual honesty. One wonders what other misreadings you regularly make.

To lybrary:
I don't know if anyone else has said it but I have suggested you be intellectually honest. I don't think my recommendation should be interpreted as "preaching". If you are offended by my encouragement I'm probably the one who you should take it up with.
Not the one who created the Potter Index.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 11:03 am

lybrary wrote:Smith not only initially states “not over 5'6"” he confirms this a second time “wasn't over 5'6"”. Then Gardner goes to work on him suggesting that his thinness had Smith mis-remember it as smallness. Very creative guy that Gardner. And only then is Smith changing his upper bound to 5'7". The entire discussion is about the upper bound. Nowhere do they talk about the lower bound. This is not a credible way to get to a valid upper bound, nor is it a credible way to find the lower bound. Smith states twice not over 5'6". That is the credible number.

You can bend the truth and push Smith's number up, and you can bend the truth and push Sander's height down. But you will never make a 5'9" Sanders or even a 5'8" Sanders a very small man. Smith didn't merely say Erdnase was smaller than him. He didn't even say he was a small man. He said he was a very small man. On top Sanders has the wrong eye color and hair color.


The fact remains that Smith stuck to his guns with 5'6" and allowed for an inch in either direction. That was the range he gave. Regarding how he phrased it and inferences one can draw beyond that (e.g. with your mathematical inequalities reasoning) there are a few important factors at play:

1) It's common usage to describe someone's height as "not an inch over 5'7" etc to describe an actual height. You never say "not an inch under 5'7". i.e. The implied scale is always of height, not smallness. There's not even a good word for smallness (or lack of height). That should tell you something.

2) It's also common usage (see Gricean maxim) to focus on relevant information. So you'd never say "he's not an inch over 6 feet" for a person who is 5 feet tall, even though it's technically true. Likewise, Smith would never say at most 5'7 for the much shorter Gallaway. This is what makes your mathematical inequalities argument so brittle. You're not accounting for how language is actually used in the real world.

3) Garder was advocating a very tall man, and Smith was pushing back against that. So he was emphasizing the upper limit in that context. This relates to and reinforces the relevancy factor in 2) above.

Regarding "very small man". Apparently Smith (being tall) considered 5'6 or 5'7 to be "very small". Everyone has their own categories. In any case, with that sort of scale, he would have likely considered the 5'3 Gallaway as "diminutive"...that's a whole other level of smallness.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 11:14 am

Brad Henderson wrote:and here chris demonstrates he has more interest in semantic games and argument winning then in actually having a real discussion.
I was afraid you wouldn't get it.

Brad Henderson wrote:erdnase was never a famous writer. but he was a well established gambler. so there should be records of having cards in his hands.
Really? How do you then explain that his writings have continuously been published for more than a 100 years? How do you explain his influence on so many magicians? If there was one famous writer in magic it was Erdnase. But we have no record of him actually gambling anywhere. Your logic is twisted like ivy growing up a tree.

Brad Henderson wrote:how does having copy of a book prove he knew card tricks? and if someone had the degree of interest in card tricks erdnase had, you really think he’d have only a single book on the topic?????
We know for certain that Gallaway had Expert. That doesn't mean he couldn't have had many other magic books. When Jay Marshall directly asked Gallaway’s daughter in law: “Did he have any books on gambling,…or card tricks?” she answered: “He could have had…he was quite a guy…” How many magic books we know for certain did Sanders have in his library? Zero. How many magic books we know for certain did E.S. Andrews have in his library? Zero. You should check your biases before you accuse others.

Brad Henderson wrote:your tactics may work against the timid, but here they just make you look like a dick.
Bill Mullins would call you a potty mouth, but he is an unfair guy and only calls me that. But perhaps he made an error. He mixed up Gallaway with Sanders the other day. By his own opinion this should disqualify him from participating. He should not be trusted.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 11:21 am

Bob Coyne wrote:You never say "not an inch under 5'7". i.e. The implied scale is always of height, not smallness. There's not even a good word for smallness (or lack of height). That should tell you something.
From "Election Year" by Francisco Feliciano: "The man who stood there against the backdrop of manipulated illumination stood not an inch under six-foot-four." From Reddit: "You look great girl! Not an inch under 5'8"." And you are the house-linguist here???

It is a silly argument to begin with, because if they would have spoken about the lower limit Smith would have expressed it however he wanted, perhaps said: "He was at least ... tall". He never does that. The lower bound never is being discussed or probed. Therefore we do not know. However the upper bound has been probed and pushed and the very extreme Smith would go after being pushed is 5'7". Sanders was 5'9".
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 11:32 am

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:You never say "not an inch under 5'7". i.e. The implied scale is always of height, not smallness. There's not even a good word for smallness (or lack of height). That should tell you something.
From "Election Year" by Francisco Feliciano: "The man who stood there against the backdrop of manipulated illumination stood not an inch under six-foot-four." From Reddit: "You look great girl! Not an inch under 5'8"." And you are the house-linguist here???

Umm....You omitted this part of what I said:

"It's common usage to describe someone's height as "not an inch over 5'7" etc to describe an actual height. "

Of course anything can be said. The issue is what's normally said and what we can infer from it. You're missing the most obvious of points, yet again!

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 19th, 2018, 12:07 pm

lybrary wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:and here chris demonstrates he has more interest in semantic games and argument winning then in actually having a real discussion.
I was afraid you wouldn't get it.



or, you’re afraid that you would be exposed for the manipulative fraud you are?

if we want to call names, let’s do it. if that’s all you have, that’s all you got i suppose



Brad Henderson wrote:erdnase was never a famous writer. but he was a well established gambler. so there should be records of having cards in his hands.
Really? How do you then explain that his writings have continuously been published for more than a 100 years? How do you explain his influence on so many magicians? If there was one famous writer in magic it was Erdnase. But we have no record of him actually gambling anywhere. Your logic is twisted like ivy growing up a tree.


really, erdnase was a famous author in his lifetime? is this why his books were remaindered so quickly after publication because magicians all over the world were snapping them up?

or is you assertion that because an anonymous someone wrote a book that eventually became famous that people would go back in time and preserve all the records long thrown out of the person who they didn’t know who wrote said book?

that’s what you’re going for?

the reason he has been published is because of vernon and his students and the associated mystery. The content in the book is the real deal, which speaks to someone who would have had tens of thousands of contacts among people in the world of gambling. it is also almost indecipherable without serious study and experience - which speaks to a lack of skill as a writer whose goal is instruction.

but here is where you jump in with the ‘well, he could have been a worse writer!’

yes chris. yes. there were worse writers.

good boy.




Brad Henderson wrote:how does having copy of a book prove he knew card tricks? and if someone had the degree of interest in card tricks erdnase had, you really think he’d have only a single book on the topic?????
We know for certain that Gallaway had Expert. That doesn't mean he couldn't have had many other magic books. When Jay Marshall directly asked Gallaway’s daughter in law: “Did he have any books on gambling,…or card tricks?” she answered: “He could have had…he was quite a guy…” How many magic books we know for certain did Sanders have in his library? Zero. How many magic books we know for certain did E.S. Andrews have in his library? Zero. You should check your biases before you accuse others.


how do we know that he didn’t have a large magic book collection and sold it prior to his estate being cataloged?

i mean if we play the ‘what if’ game, then any candidate could have had a million magic books.

but wouldn’t you expect to find books that had the material that made it into the eactc, like notes on card tricks?

we have a candidate that did just that.

and why would we assume a professional cheat would have magic trick books? and if he did, wouldn’t they be the ones from which the erdnase trick section was composed?


Brad Henderson wrote:your tactics may work against the timid, but here they just make you look like a dick.
Bill Mullins would call you a potty mouth, but he is an unfair guy and only calls me that. But perhaps he made an error. He mixed up Gallaway with Sanders the other day. By his own opinion this should disqualify him from participating. He should not be trusted.
[/quote]

ah, a mistake vs deliberate misinterpretation.

again, you reveal yourself.

you know. we don’t know for a fact that vernon didn’t have a time machine and didn’t go back and distill his lifetime of experience into a book which he published only to later rediscover as a kid.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 12:46 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:Of course anything can be said. The issue is what's normally said and what we can infer from it. You're missing the most obvious of points, yet again!
You wrote: "You never say". You should be more precise. But as I said, there are ways to express that somebody is at least as tall as some measure and Smith would have expressed it with the proper words. But they never discussed the lower bound. Therefore we do not know his lower bound. It is a simple fact you should at least recognize.

Even with all the bending of the truth, massaging of numbers, and ignoring the facts, Smith's extreme upper bound was 5'7" and Sanders was at the very least 5'8" (actually he was 5'9"). You are still an inch short and you still claim Sanders fits what Smith said. That is the kind of dishonesty that is baffling. You can all sit on your high horse of objectivity, of intellectual honesty, of fairly evaluating the facts, but saying that Sanders fits Smith's recollection of height is false, dishonest, and not at all objective.

Brad Henderson wrote:the reason he has been published is because of vernon and his students and the associated mystery.
I guess we do learn new things here. So Erdnase was published because of Vernon? Wonderful exhibition of logic! Vernon was a child when Expert was published. Vernon had nothing to do with its publication. In 1905 Drake started to reprint Expert. To reprint a book in the third year of its original publication is a very good achievement by any measure and certainly by the measure of 1905. It was a successful book from its early days.

Brad Henderson wrote:how do we know that he didn’t have a large magic book collection and sold it prior to his estate being cataloged?
The phrase you missed is for certain. Anybody could have had any number of books. But we only know of Gallaway having a magic book in his library. That is hard documentary evidence versus speculation. You seem to prefer hard evidence versus speculation, except when it is supporting Gallaway. I see, that is your kind of objectivity.

Brad Henderson wrote:ah, a mistake vs deliberate misinterpretation.
So when Olsson writes "The Man Who Was Erdnase" by Gardner, then this is a deliberate misinterpretion? That was the 'error' Bill Mullins accused Olsson of.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 1:19 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Of course anything can be said. The issue is what's normally said and what we can infer from it. You're missing the most obvious of points, yet again!
You wrote: "You never say". You should be more precise. But as I said, there are ways to express that somebody is at least as tall as some measure and Smith would have expressed it with the proper words. But they never discussed the lower bound. Therefore we do not know his lower bound. It is a simple fact you should at least recognize.

I said "never say" in the context of "common usage". You need to learn to read contextually rather than literally. It's the same mistake you make over and over.

Your mathematical inequalities argument is just wrong. If I say a person is not an inch over 5'11, I'm implying that they're close to that height. I wouldn't say that about someone who is 5'2 (other than ironically, etc). That's common usage and you can't make inferences divorced from that.

This is especially the case for Smith when Gardner was pushing an even taller person. And it's also reinforced (as I pointed out) by the fact that common idioms express height, not smallness...i.e.it's not normal usage to describe someone as "not an inch under 5'11" unless there was special context involved where a lower limit was at issue.

If you look into the Gricean maxims I referred to, you can see that this is well-trodden territory. Language occurs in a social context, which is very different than the literal way you seem prone to interpret it. Utterances not only have truth value but relevance. You have to interpret the intended meaning through both lenses.

So yes I will admit that if a mathemetician says that a variable is <= some quantity, there's no implication about a lower bound. But as I hope the above makes clear, we're dealing with how language is actually used, not mathematical statements.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 1:45 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:Your mathematical inequalities argument is just wrong. If I say a person is not an inch over 5'11, I'm implying that they're close to that height. I wouldn't say that about someone who is 5'2 (other than ironically, etc). That's common usage and you can't make inferences divorced from that.
Smith never said "not an inch over". He said "not over". That simply expresses his upper bound. You cannot infer what his lower bound is. Say Gardner's candidate was just 5' tall. How low do you think Smith would have gone? That is a rhetorical question, BTW. You don't need to answer it. We don't know how low Smith would have gone. We know his extreme upper limit, but not his extreme lower limit. It is a simple fact you can't admit. Very sad. Just don't make yourself out as the arbiter of objectivity and how language needs to be interpreted.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 1:53 pm

lybrary wrote:Even with all the bending of the truth, massaging of numbers, and ignoring the facts, Smith's extreme upper bound was 5'7" and Sanders was at the very least 5'8" (actually he was 5'9"). You are still an inch short and you still claim Sanders fits what Smith said. That is the kind of dishonesty that is baffling. You can all sit on your high horse of objectivity, of intellectual honesty, of fairly evaluating the facts, but saying that Sanders fits Smith's recollection of height is false, dishonest, and not at all objective.


I don't know what "bending of truth" you're referring to. If it's about how to interpret Smith's statements, then you're simply over interpreting what we can infer from them (for the reasons I already stated).

I see you couldn't resist making the definitive sounding side remark ("actually he was 5'9") about Sanders. Unless you have information nobody else has we only know of a rowing team measurement of 5'8, and two self reported heights of 5'8 1/2 and 5'9. Given that men typically exaggerate their height by an inch, I'd say 5'8 is the best guess. Though to be completely objective, we don't know he was at least 5'8 either. It's possible the rowing team measurement was exaggerated too.

When I claim that Sanders fits Smith's statements, I mean within what i consider a reasonable margin of error. If Gallaway was 5'3 as your average estimate makes him, then he's further from Smiths 5'5-5'7 range than Sanders (average 5'8 1/2). Anyway, we don't know any of their heights exactly, but they're all arguably close enough to his stated possible range (unlike MFA who just couldn't be the guy unless Smith was seriously confused). But I don't think you can argue that Erdnase is outside the 5'6 plus/minus an inch range without excluding Gallaway. Though you try to do that by adopting an odd interpretation of his words that allows a 4'6 person to be within his range too (via your mathematical inequalities sophistry).

And regarding all the insults of "dishonesty", I can assure you that I'm just stating what seems to me to be the case. So perhaps you should switch your insult to "stupidity"...or you can stick with "ridiculous" which you've used before. Good idea to try something different either way, since "dishonesty" is getting a bit overused recently.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 2:30 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Your mathematical inequalities argument is just wrong. If I say a person is not an inch over 5'11, I'm implying that they're close to that height. I wouldn't say that about someone who is 5'2 (other than ironically, etc). That's common usage and you can't make inferences divorced from that.
Smith never said "not an inch over". He said "not over". That simply expresses his upper bound. You cannot infer what his lower bound is. Say Gardner's candidate was just 5' tall. How low do you think Smith would have gone? That is a rhetorical question, BTW. You don't need to answer it. We don't know how low Smith would have gone. We know his extreme upper limit, but not his extreme lower limit. It is a simple fact you can't admit. Very sad. Just don't make yourself out as the arbiter of objectivity and how language needs to be interpreted.

"not over" is like "not an inch over"...same basic construct. In common usage (without some special context), you'd infer the person is close to (but not over) that height. Again, this is language as actually used vs in a math class on inequalities. In any statement, there are various possible implications besides the strict/literal truth value. And this is often where the meaning resides. Note that Smith reinforced this by also stating a lower bound ("could be he was 5'5).

You don't seem atuned to this aspect of language. Check out conversational implicature and Gricean maxims. It's really kind of obvious (just a description of what we all do every day...well most of us). But perhaps reading about it will open your eyes.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 19th, 2018, 2:42 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bill Mullins wrote:... it's very clear that I was not taking today's norms and experiences, I was taking norms and experiences contemporary (1906) to Erdnase.
You have no idea about the norms and experiences around Erdnase's time. There were half a million people of German descent in Chicago. It was the largest ethnic group there. German newspapers were published. Public addresses were held in German. You have not the slightest idea.

I provided evidence that the 1906 pronunciation was "erd-nace". Back up your assertion with evidence -- where's the record of anyone saying the author's name with a German pronunciation?
lybrary wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:erdnase was never a famous writer. . .

If there was one famous writer in magic it was Erdnase.

You honestly think Erdnase was famous? Seriously? Ask 100 people who aren't involved in magic or gambling, and if one of them knows who he is, I'd be surprised. Greatly surprised.

Other writers in magic who were/are far more famous:
- Walter Gibson (pulp magazine writer, popular fiction, etc.)
- Mark Wilson (TV star)
- Sid Fleischman (popular writer for 60 years)

When Joshua Jay was pushing his book on "The Today Show" in Dec 2008, the show had over 5 million viewers. Over 8 million people say Ricky Jay's special "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women," based on his book. Do you think it conceivable that more than a few hundred thousand people have heard of Erdnase in the last century?

Erdnase wrote for the trade. Any of a number of magic writers who wrote for the general public were/are far more famous: Hoffmann, Fulves, Bruce Elliott

As Mark Lewis has posted a number of times, being famous in magic is like being famous in your apartment building.

But we have no record of [Erdnase] actually gambling anywhere.

"Our tuition was received in the cold school of experience. . . . . We bucked the tiger voluntarily, and censure no one for the inevitable result."

Brad Henderson wrote:your tactics may work against the timid, but here they just make you look like a dick.
Bill Mullins would call you a potty mouth, but he is an unfair guy and only calls me that.

If Brad calls me a dick, I'll call him a potty mouth. I am fair.

It was a successful book from its early days.
If it was such a money-maker, why did weren't the copyrights renewed? The renewal fee was a whole dollar -- but that was more than renewing the book was worth.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 19th, 2018, 3:17 pm

Bill Mullins wrote:"Our tuition was received in the cold school of experience. . . . . We bucked the tiger voluntarily, and censure no one for the inevitable result."
I meant something besides the author's own claims, an independent record.

Bill Mullins wrote:
It was a successful book from its early days.
If it was such a money-maker, why did weren't the copyrights renewed? The renewal fee was a whole dollar -- but that was more than renewing the book was worth.
The renewal was 28 years after publication. Lots of things could have changed by then. Many publishers are very sloppy with copyrights. Many didn't even register their copyrights in the first place, let alone renew. That doesn't mean they weren't profitable books. We know that for the Police Gazette at least it was a very profitable business to sell Expert. The fact that it has been continuously in print should be proof enough that it was a profitable book. Otherwise it would have been dropped a long time ago.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Kaufman » April 19th, 2018, 8:12 pm

Just because a book has been continuously in print in cheap editions does not mean it sells a lot or that it's a money maker.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » April 19th, 2018, 9:54 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Of course anything can be said. The issue is what's normally said and what we can infer from it. You're missing the most obvious of points, yet again!
You wrote: "You never say". You should be more precise.


ok chris. let’s play your petty, desperate game.

you said

lybrary wrote:
Brad Henderson wrote:and the fact is, we do know that individuals played cards based on the historical record. or are you going to claim that there were no poker players in the early 1900’s.
We know that generally speaking, but not specifically for anybody.


look again, we don’t know “specifically for anybody”. Not “anybody”. but yet i gave you several lists of individuals who we do know specifically.

perhaps you should have been more precise - or stop playing word games and start being honest in your discourse.

can you do that?


Brad Henderson wrote:the reason he has been published is because of vernon and his students and the associated mystery.
I guess we do learn new things here. So Erdnase was published because of Vernon? Wonderful exhibition of logic! Vernon was a child when Expert was published. Vernon had nothing to do with its publication. In 1905 Drake started to reprint Expert. To reprint a book in the third year of its original publication is a very good achievement by any measure and certainly by the measure of 1905. It was a successful book from its early days.


and when all else fails, quote someone out of context. you asked

Really? How do you then explain that his writings have continuously been published for more than a 100 years?


to which i replied as above. you never asked how or why he was published originally. We know that answer - because he paid for it!

so you asked a question and had your ass handed to you and rather than be a man about it, you take my response out of context and build an absurd argument upon it. you literally changed the question so you wouldn’t be seen as wrong.

the reason we know of erdnase is because of vernon and the reason it has inspired so many is because of his influence.

maybe you shouldn’t ask stupid questions next time. but hey, if you can’t respond without straw men arguments, semantic quibbles, or ad hominem attacks that says everything we need to know about the strength of your case, doesn’t it?


Brad Henderson wrote:how do we know that he didn’t have a large magic book collection and sold it prior to his estate being cataloged?
The phrase you missed is for certain. Anybody could have had any number of books. But we only know of Gallaway having a magic book in his library. That is hard documentary evidence versus speculation. You seem to prefer hard evidence versus speculation, except when it is supporting Gallaway. I see, that is your kind of objectivity.



hey, i’m just playing by the rules you are setting for yourself. You’re the king of ‘we you can’t say it couldn’t have happened’. when you take that path you can go anywhere - heck, i could apply your arguments to prove I was erdnase!

but having a book in ones library that has card tricks in it doesn’t prove FOR CERTAIN that someone has an interest in card tricks.

wouldn’t it prove embarrassing if someone wrote that he knew that galloway had an interest in card tricks based on this one data point.

i think it would

do you?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 19th, 2018, 10:41 pm

In Chris's ebook, I found it interesting to read the few snippets provided from Sanders' diaries...never seen any before. They are *very* different from his other writings. Very repetitive and truncated, and written in telegraphic style: Did this; did that; pleasant day. He does say, though, several times "wrote some"...so presumably that's where his full sentences went.

In Olsson's report, he makes these statements regarding the diaries and Sanders' writing: "I could not find a single reference to a book that he read and no evidence, across the five year period, of any significant development of his vocabulary.... No authors are mentioned. ... I believe this lack of reading is mirrored in his adult writing too."

It seems that Olsson is unaware of Sanders' other writing beyond parts of the diaries (which are atypical and linguistically impoverished) and Mine Timbering (very dry/technical for the most part). Or perhaps, he's deliberately ignoring it. Either way, this is a severe shortcoming and casts a serious cloud over his methods and any conclusions he draws.

Reading: We've already established that Sanders was very well read (quoting Livy and other Latin writers, etc). Aside from abundant evidence in his writings, his affection for learning and books should be obvious given that he held the position of Librarian for the Historical Society of Montana.

Vocabulary: And regarding his vocabulary, if Olsson had looked, he would have found that Sanders had a very well developed vocabulary, using words such as these (not to mention the various foreign and imported words we've discussed previously and his own neologisms such as cyclopaediculous):

artlessness, countenance, flippant, temerity, vicarious, renders, extant, abatement, incipient, hypothesis, subsequent, paraphernalia,...engendered, incalculable, pedagogic, jurassic, jocund, unobtrusive, vagabonding, quest, sylvan; contour, reprove, verbatim, cutaneous, excrescence, picturesque, sinuosities, serenade, companionable, precarious, ingenuousness, temerity, effervescent, qualification, innocuous, idyllic, rotund, polygonal, hexagonal, octagonal, elliptical, topographical, euphonic, contiguous, negligable, doughtily, legation, soliloquize, incontinently, convolutions, consecrated, laudable, ordinances, enactments, data, encomiums, reminiscences, fidelity, transpire, fragmentary, cordially, abode, fauna, ethnology, unscrupulous, privation, etymologically, conversely, ablative, nominative, accusative, vocative, burgesses, obliquely, appellation, penult, ante-penult, indomitable, cognomen, abiding, immemorial, corroborative, paramount, adorn, azure, consecrated, mouldered, emblazoned, khamsin, portentous, carnage, moiled, sequestered, conversant, epochs, connubial, repines, baleful, frolicsome, embowered, tandem, sublime, contrive, envenomed, benedictions, veneration, mien, unceremoniously, be-dimmed

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » April 20th, 2018, 12:41 am

Bob Coyne wrote:In Olsson's report, he makes these statements regarding the diaries and Sanders' writing: "I could not find a single reference to a book that he read and no evidence, across the five year period, of any significant development of his vocabulary.... No authors are mentioned. ... I believe this lack of reading is mirrored in his adult writing too."

It seems that Olsson is unaware of Sanders' other writing beyond parts of the diaries (which are atypical and linguistically impoverished) and Mine Timbering (very dry/technical for the most part). Or perhaps, he's deliberately ignoring it. Either way, this is a severe shortcoming and casts a serious cloud over his methods and any conclusions he draws.


A great post Bob! You articulated exactly what I had suspected about Olsson's 40 page report: Chris failed to turn in a sufficient amount of Sanders' writing samples for Olsson to present a more accurate analyses. Given what you have discovered, that 40 page report turns out to be absolutely useless. The argument for Gallaway sinks further into the quicksand. That you had to pay hard earned money to confirm the shoddiness of Olsson's report saddens me:

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 20th, 2018, 2:49 am

lybrary wrote:
Bill Mullins wrote:For example, he says "The man who was Erdnase by Martin Gardner", and later refers to it as "Gardner's book". Gardner was one of three co-authors, and anyone who has actually read it would realize that the vast majority of the writing is by Busby and Whaley.
How exactly does that affect his linguistic expertise and judgement? What does such an abbreviation/error, to not list all authors but only the most prominent and well known one, have to do with his work as linguist? Just because somebody makes a typo or a clerical error suddenly he can't be trusted anymore? By that measure, Bill, we can't trust you either, because you have made more than one error - and much more substantial ones for that matter - in your posts here.

It's almost like you don't read the posts you pull quotes from.
I was quite clear that I wasn't commenting on his linguistics skills. I was commenting on his knowledge of Erdnase. To continue the argument:
- Others have pointed out that he (or you?) picked out the least appropriate works by Sanders to analyze.
- The edition of Erdnase he used appears not to be standard with respect to spelling (which is important, as some of his analysis is based on spelling). For example, his Table 8 lists variances in the spelling of "manoeuver" as it appears in Expert. Note that his table lists page numbers from his word processor files, but he states that they can be corrected to actual page numbers from the text by subtracting 4 (if that's the case, then why did he not simply do so?). I'm listing what he claims to be the actual page numbers.
manoeuvre: 1, 10, 17, 25, 137
manoeuver: 41, 52, 94, 95, 96, 110, 158
But if you take a "standard" copy, such as a Powner paperback edition, you get the following:
manoeuvre: 14, 17, 25, 137
manoeuver: 41, 56, 92, 94, 95, 96, 110, 158
So either his counting process is off, or he's used an edition in which pagination and spelling has been altered. Either explanation is fatal to any analysis based on counting the spellings of words.
- The inconsistences in his Table 9, comparing "slight" and "sleight", are even greater, and they are further compounded by the fact that Olsson is copying analysis first presented here, without acknowledging the prior work. As Olsson himself tells us, "any form of plagiarism is of itself despicable."
- In the discussion of the Charlier Pass, he mentions "the contention that [C. H.] Wilson is the author of Expert." I'm not familiar with anyone contending this.

I don't believe that any of these issues would have come up if someone who was familiar with the text and the candidates had guided Olsson, and suggested that:
- He use appropriate texts from Sanders;
- He correctly name the authors of the Erdnase-related books he cites;
- He use a "standard" edition of Expert, with consistent pagination and spelling;
- He use writings from people who have seriously been proposed as candidates (James Andrews, William Symes Andrews, etc.)

On reading this, Chris may well ask "how does this affect Olsson's linguistic analysis?" And, with the exception of the counting issues, it may not. But it does mean that he's not always asking the right questions, and when he is getting answers, he can't interpret them correctly.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 20th, 2018, 8:38 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:maybe he bought it for a gift and never had the chance to deliver it?
Yeah, and before he presents the gift he glues his own bookplate into the book, because that is what one does when one gifts a book. You can't make this up. It must require real effort to construct that incoherent an argument.

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I never called you a dick, but if you felt being addressed then that is entirely your problem.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 20th, 2018, 9:03 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:Unless you have information nobody else has we only know of a rowing team measurement of 5'8, and two self reported heights of 5'8 1/2 and 5'9. Given that men typically exaggerate their height by an inch, I'd say 5'8 is the best guess. Though to be completely objective, we don't know he was at least 5'8 either. It's possible the rowing team measurement was exaggerated too.
This is the double standard that is being applied here. Not only is Bob bending the truth from both sides (what Smith said, and how tall Sanders actually was), but when he is still an inch short he lobs off another inch by claiming the rowing team measurement was exaggerated. Also his "men typically exaggerate their height by an inch", which he pulled out of his behind, is pure fantasy. Having lobbed off another inch you would now need that men typically exaggerate their height by TWO inches. If I would make an argument like that five people would pile on top of me accusing me of all kinds of ethical misdeeds. When Bob does it all the 'geniuses' here are silent. Hypocrites!
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » April 20th, 2018, 9:27 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Unless you have information nobody else has we only know of a rowing team measurement of 5'8, and two self reported heights of 5'8 1/2 and 5'9. Given that men typically exaggerate their height by an inch, I'd say 5'8 is the best guess. Though to be completely objective, we don't know he was at least 5'8 either. It's possible the rowing team measurement was exaggerated too.
This is the double standard that is being applied here. Not only is Bob bending the truth from both sides (what Smith said, and how tall Sanders actually was), but when he is still an inch short he lobs off another inch by claiming the rowing team measurement was exaggerated. Also his "men typically exaggerate their height by an inch", which he pulled out of his behind, is pure fantasy. Having lobbed off another inch you would now need that men typically exaggerate their height by TWO inches. If I would make an argument like that five people would pile on top of me accusing me of all kinds of ethical misdeeds. When Bob does it all the 'geniuses' here are silent. Hypocrites!


Bob is not bending the truth. We know that Smith stuck to 5'6 and definitely no more than 5'7. We also know it was a 45 year old memory and a 2 or 3 inch margin of error is not unreasonable. It doesn't matter if Sanders was 5'8 or 5'9, he was still shorter than the 6'1 Smith. If it had been the 5'3 or 5'4 Gallaway in the room, Smith might have said he saw a really tiny guy.

lybrary wrote:This not being able to hang on to the money he made could very well be due to gambling at Faro.


A fantasy you pulled out of your behind.

Bob Coyne
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 20th, 2018, 9:31 pm

lybrary wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:Unless you have information nobody else has we only know of a rowing team measurement of 5'8, and two self reported heights of 5'8 1/2 and 5'9. Given that men typically exaggerate their height by an inch, I'd say 5'8 is the best guess. Though to be completely objective, we don't know he was at least 5'8 either. It's possible the rowing team measurement was exaggerated too.
This is the double standard that is being applied here. Not only is Bob bending the truth from both sides (what Smith said, and how tall Sanders actually was), but when he is still an inch short he lobs off another inch by claiming the rowing team measurement was exaggerated. Also his "men typically exaggerate their height by an inch", which he pulled out of his behind, is pure fantasy. Having lobbed off another inch you would now need that men typically exaggerate their height by TWO inches. If I would make an argument like that five people would pile on top of me accusing me of all kinds of ethical misdeeds. When Bob does it all the 'geniuses' here are silent. Hypocrites!

Wrong again! You gotta learn to read. You don't seem to know the difference between a claim and saying something is possible.

I only said that it was possible (and i purposely put italics around it to make it obvious). I did not say or imply it was the case (or even likely). I mentioned it in order to reinforce the larger point that none of this is definitive. You're the one who stated as a fact that Sanders was 5' 9" when you don't know that...it's just a guess that you seem to think bolsters your argument.

Regarding my statement that men exaggerate their height...it was from a study that I linked to earlier. Here it is again (below). You can dispute it if you like, but you're irresponsible claiming i just made it up. (Though the proposition does have the ring of truth, wouldn't you say?)

http://adc.bmj.com/content/90/9/941

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lybrary
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » April 20th, 2018, 9:44 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:I only said that it was possible (and i purposely put italics around it to make it obvious). I did not say or imply it was the case (or even likely).
Pretty much anything is possible. Aliens could land tomorrow. What's the point?
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