ERDNASE

Discuss general aspects of Genii.
Bob Coyne
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » March 30th, 2018, 3:10 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:Bob--are you also familiar with that eerie spellout of W.E. Sanders on the title page of The Expert?


Only vaguely, from this forum way back...was that you who discovered it? Is that a case of a column of letters spelling out his name if you shift them one way or the other?

On the subject of the title page, I'm also reminded of the "subterfuge Andrews" (from "subterfuge and ruse...") obliquely pointing to the existence of the double anagram that David Alexander discovered...i.e. that "Andrews", the obvious backwards spelling is itself a ruse that misdirects from "Sanders". I really love that idea, though I admit it's hard to count it as concrete evidence on its own.

One random other thing that occurred to me recently is that throughout the college reunion writings, Sanders refers to the various people as being "expert" in this or that...about a dozen references like that. Interesting in that he himself had written a book called "Expert at the Card Table". I don't know if this is significant or not, but it's something to ponder.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 3:57 pm

lybrary wrote:Erdnase was certainly part of the group of a couple of thousand of people who owned that book. That is much harder evidence than most everything else. Of course, by itself not enough, but much more limiting than all the Sanders evidence combined.


Really? You know that Erdnase "certainly"owned a copy of The Expert? Do you have any evidence for this? For example he might have mentioned in the book that he kept a copy for himself. Is it mentioned in The Expert or is this just your conjecture?
"...much more limiting than all the Sanders evidence combined" Hmmm...sounds like part of the sales pitch for your overpriced $45.00 Gallaway ebook.


library wrote:He was not only in Chicago, but he worked at James McKinney at the time the book was printed there. That again is much more relevant evidence, because it means we have hard evidence of Gallaway's contact to the printer. For Sander's there is no such evidence.


So? Lots of people had contact with the printer. The author of The Expert could have been an outsider as much as an insider. You have hard evidence that Gallaway had contact with the printer--by itself that means nothing. The printer had contact with hundreds of other people as well. And who knows? Some of them may have also owned a copy of The Expert as well. At best, you have narrowed down the list to a few hundred men...keep going.


lybrary wrote:Just as valid or ridiculous as a complex anagram. Both are mere theories without any evidence linked to Erdnase directly.


I prefer the anagram theory above all others since there is hard evidence that Sanders played with anagrams of his own name as a schoolboy. And his name is a perfect anagram of S.W. Erdnase. That is incontestable, and most certainly much less ridiculous than the Erdnase nickname idea you conjured up.


lybrary wrote:Dr. Olsson had access to notebook entries when Sanders was a teenager. That certainly allows him to get an understanding of his habits during that time.


Get an understanding of habits from notebooks entries? From Sanders' teenage notebook entries Dr. Ollson could ascertain the depth of Sanders reading or whatever else? I can understand why you would want to believe this quackery since you handed over to Dr. Ollson a check with zeros on it. It is natural to want to believe you have received value for your money. When that nonsense is repeated in your overpriced $45.00 Gallaway ebook, then it becomes the blind leading the blind.


lybrary wrote:Gallaway had hundreds of books in his library. Why do you think he would absorb the vocabulary of that book in particular? The more straight forward explanation is that Gallaway is Erdnase.


"The more straight forward explanation is that Gallaway is Erdnase." More of the sales pitch for your overpriced $45.00 Gallaway e-book. And despite the fact that Gallaway owned a copy of The Expert for many years, he didn't absorb very much, just a word here and there. His writing does not resemble Erdnase in practically any way. You still have not submitted Erdnasian writing traits from Gallaway such as the dialect vernacular speech that Erdnase and Sanders utilized to create believable fictional characters. There are other writing traits that mirror Erdnase from Sanders that Bob has pointed out, and yet you cannot provide similar examples from Gallaway beyond that anemic list of alliterations.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 4:24 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:
Leonard Hevia wrote:Bob--are you also familiar with that eerie spellout of W.E. Sanders on the title page of The Expert?


Only vaguely, from this forum way back...was that you who discovered it? Is that a case of a column of letters spelling out his name if you shift them one way or the other?

On the subject of the title page, I'm also reminded of the "subterfuge Andrews" (from "subterfuge and ruse...") obliquely pointing to the existence of the double anagram that David Alexander discovered...i.e. that "Andrews", the obvious backwards spelling is itself a ruse that misdirects from "Sanders". I really love that idea, though I admit it's hard to count it as concrete evidence on its own.

One random other thing that occurred to me recently is that throughout the college reunion writings, Sanders refers to the various people as being "expert" in this or that...about a dozen references like that. Interesting in that he himself had written a book called "Expert at the Card Table". I don't know if this is significant or not, but it's something to ponder.


Somebody else discovered it and it's buried many pages back on this thread. I also like Alexander's thought that the reverse spelling of S.W. Erdnase was a red herring by the author to derail those who would attempt to ascertain his identity. The author's ruse is still working well in the 21st century.

The repeated use of the word "expert" from that reunion book is yet another interesting example from Sanders that mirrors Erdnase--good catch Bob!

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 30th, 2018, 5:42 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:You know that Erdnase "certainly"owned a copy of The Expert? Do you have any evidence for this?
No hard evidence, but most authors do keep a copy of the books they wrote in their library. It is therefore very likely that Erdnase kept a copy of his book, particularly since we do have hard evidence that he was a heavy reader, a bookish person.
Leonard Hevia wrote:Lots of people had contact with the printer. The author of The Expert could have been an outsider as much as an insider. You have hard evidence that Gallaway had contact with the printer--by itself that means nothing. The printer had contact with hundreds of other people as well. And who knows? Some of them may have also owned a copy of The Expert as well. At best, you have narrowed down the list to a few hundred men...keep going.
Oh yes, it means a lot. Because if you start to combine the evidence it dramatically narrows the field.

Think of it in terms of a Ven diagram. One circle is the group of all who had a first edition of Expert, about 1000-3000 people roughly speaking. One of them is Erdnase. Then think of another circle that represents all the people who had contact with James McKinney around the time the book was published. Perhaps another 1000 or so people. Those two circles do not perfectly overlap. In fact, the overlap will be rather small, I believe a handful of people, maybe a dozen or so. One of those is Erdnase. And Gallaway also sits in that overlapping region because he both had a first edition of Expert and he had contact with McKinney. While those two facts do not proof that Gallaway is Erdnase, they put him in a group of a handful of people from whom one MUST be Erdnase. And those are only two facts we have hard irrefutable evidence of. No similar argument exists for Sanders.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 6:16 pm

lybrary wrote:
Leonard Hevia wrote:You know that Erdnase "certainly"owned a copy of The Expert? Do you have any evidence for this?
No hard evidence, but most authors do keep a copy of the books they wrote in their library. It is therefore very likely that Erdnase kept a copy of his book


Precisely--you have no hard evidence whatsoever. Your assertion that it is "very likely" without any hard evidence that Erdnase kept a copy of his book means nothing. Telling me that "most authors do keep a copy of the books" they authored in their libraries--is your best guess. And I didn't have to pay you $45.00 to understand that.

lybrary wrote:Think of it in terms of a Ven diagram. One circle is the group of all who had a first edition of Expert, about 1000-3000 people roughly speaking. One of them is Erdnase. Then think of another circle that represents all the people who had contact with James McKinney around the time the book was published. Perhaps another 1000 or so people. Those two circles do not perfectly overlap. In fact, the overlap will be rather small, I believe a handful of people, maybe a dozen or so. One of those is Erdnase. And Gallaway also sits in that overlapping region because he both had a first edition of Expert and he had contact with McKinney. While those two facts do not proof that Gallaway is Erdnase, they put him in a group of a handful of people from whom one MUST be Erdnase. And those are only two facts we have hard irrefutable evidence of. No similar argument exists for Sanders.


Your Ven diagram argument is invalid unless you can prove without question that Erdnase actually owned a copy of The Expert. The foundation of that argument is that Erdnase owned a copy of his book, which at the moment you cannot prove. "Very likely" or "must be" that he owned a copy is not enough. You can't be certain that one of those dozen men was Erdnase. And what of the other eleven men besides Gallaway who are possible suspects? Who are they? You're attempting to narrow it down from a thousand to dozen possible candidates on your hunch. And I didn't need to pay you $45.00 to understand that.

The only two facts you have submitted here are that Gallaway had contact with McKinney and that he owned a copy of The Expert, anything further than that is your conjecture without any proof that Erdnase owned a copy of his book. There is no similar argument that Sanders had any contact with Mckinney, but there is so much more other circumstantial evidence surrounding his connection to The Expert. The uncanny writing similarities that you cannot provide for Gallaway is one example you have failed to submit.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 30th, 2018, 6:52 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:The only two facts you have submitted here are that Gallaway had contact with McKinney and that he owned a copy of The Expert, anything further than that is your conjecture without any proof that Erdnase owned a copy of his book.
There are too many facts for you to digest. I have submitted a lot more here over the years. Certainly a lot more than you can keep in your mind. My book has hundreds of pages of evidence, a much more thorough inspection and examination of the facts than what has been presented for Sanders to date. The fact that Gallaway lived next door to Roterberg is one such evidence that Sanders cannot offer. The fact that Gallaway has self-published books, wrote the price on the title page, and registered the copyrights for them is yet another such fact where Sanders has nothing to offer. He hasn't self-published anything. You can hardly distinguish between prose and poetry, yet you present the pitiful linguistic evidence there is for Sanders, without any comparison whatsoever.

I have located the McKinney and Jamieson-Higgins bankruptcy files which have provide new facts and evidence unlike anything found for decades in the Erdnase research. One direct result of this find was the identification of who filled out the copyright form for Expert. I have identified German sources predating Erdnase which were up to this point unknown. What have you offered? So far moronic blah blah or parroting other people's points. Try to offer something of value, like new thinking, new facts, or new insights.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby jkeyes1000 » March 30th, 2018, 7:03 pm

Just a few observations after reading the above:

One is that it is certainly a fact that "most" authors do keep copies of their books. I can't give you statistics, but the only real exceptions I have found in my correspondence with published writers are those that wrote rubbish that they are not proud of, or those that were so prolific that being published was no longer a thrill. In other words--those who regarded their works as lightly as if they were shoes or coffee mugs, mere crafts that they sold in order to make money. Now, in the case of an obscure writer who publishes his own book, at his own expense, it would be almost a certainty (in my opinion) that he would keep a copy in his library.

This brings up the question of marketing and distribution. Do we know how Erdnase sold EATCT? Did he sell it himself (in which case, he would have originally possessed all of the copies)? Did he sell them to magic shops, wholesale? Or did he simply sell his stock to an investor, who re-distributed them? Unless he really wanted nothing to do with the book after publishing it, he probably retained at least one copy.

The other matter is, What did Sanders do with his published works? Did he keep copies or not? If he did, then someone is going to need to explain why he didn't own a copy of EATCT.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 30th, 2018, 7:15 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:This brings up the question of marketing and distribution. Do we know how Erdnase sold EATCT? Did he sell it himself (in which case, he would have originally possessed all of the copies)? Did he sell them to magic shops, wholesale? Or did he simply sell his stock to an investor, who re-distributed them? Unless he really wanted nothing to do with the book after publishing it, he probably retained at least one copy.

There is not that much known about how he marketed and sold his book. We do know that Atlas (a dealer in tight cooperation with Roterberg) did apparently buy a bigger load of his books, because he starts advertising and discounting them. But we do not know how many he bought. Nor do we know how many Erdnase sold to other retailers. We do know that at some point (probably 1903) he sells the rights to the publisher Drake who I think in 1905 issues the first reprint of Expert.

Many assume that Expert didn't sell well early on, and that Erdnase didn't earn a lot of money with it and thus sold the book to Drake. None of this has to be true. We don't know how many were printed in the first place, how many and at what price Erdnase sold to dealers, nor what the deal with Drake was. He could have easily made good money from the book.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 7:25 pm

lybrary wrote:My book has hundreds of pages of evidence


And yet you have submitted virtually almost no writing samples from Gallaway that mirror Erdnase's literary efforts.


lybrary wrote:The fact that Gallaway lived next door to Roterberg is one such evidence that Sanders cannot offer.


Living next door to Roterberg is evidence that Gallaway was Erdnase?



lybrary wrote:The fact that Gallaway has self-published books, wrote the price on the title page, and registered the copyrights for them is yet another such fact where Sanders has nothing to offer. He hasn't self-published anything.


Evidently not, but he was a writer and was paid for his services.


lybrary wrote:I have located the McKinney and Jamieson-Higgins bankruptcy files which have provide new facts and evidence unlike anything found for decades in the Erdnase research. One direct result of this find was the identification of who filled out the copyright form for Expert.


I was waiting for you to mention those bankruptcy files, which you charge $15.00 on your website for anyone curious to look thru. You did not hesitate to turn those files into a business for your profit. Those files have revealed nothing about the identity of the author. It turned out to be a blind alley not worth my $15.00.


lybrary wrote:I have identified German sources predating Erdnase which were up to this point unknown.


For that you are to be congratulated since your underlying motive was to prove that magical material published exclusively in German was the only way a German speaking Erdnase could have accessed material for The Expert. In your efforts to provide further evidence for Gallaway's candidacy, you have unwittingly submitted even more circumstantial evidence for Sanders since he was privately tutored in German as well as Latin and French as a young man. Bill Mullins has already noted this.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 30th, 2018, 7:44 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:And yet you have submitted virtually almost no writing samples from Gallaway that mirror Erdnase's literary efforts.
All in my ebook. I can highly recommend that you read it.
Leonard Hevia wrote:Living next door to Roterberg is evidence that Gallaway was Erdnase?
It plays a part in the story since Atlas is one dealer we know purchased likely a good load of copies of Expert, and Atlas is joined at the hip to Roterberg, mostly retails their inventory and Sorensen did work for Roterberg at some point in time. So the question is how did Erdnase get to know Sorensen? Living next door to Roterberg provides a good answer to that question.
Leonard Hevia wrote:I was waiting for you to mention those bankruptcy files, which you charge $15.00 on your website for anyone curious to look thru. You did not hesitate to turn those files into a business for your profit. Those files have revealed nothing about the identity of the author. It turned out to be a blind alley not worth my $15.00.
If you would understand what it cost me to find these files you would know it wasn't a profit making operation. These files have answered and confirmed many questions we had about McKinney, and they did lead me to Gallaway, so it definitely had a huge impact on the Erdnase search. That they do not provide any further evidence for Sanders is indication that Sanders isn't Erdnase.
Leonard Hevia wrote:For that you are to be congratulated since your underlying motive was to prove that magical material published exclusively in German was the only way a German speaking Erdnase could have accessed material for The Expert. In your efforts to provide further evidence for Gallaway's candidacy, you have unwittingly submitted even more circumstantial evidence for Sanders since he was privately tutored in German as well as Latin and French as a young man. Bill Mullins has already noted this.
We do not know if Sanders spoke enough German as an adult to actually read and understand these German magic books. But he certainly does benefit somewhat from that new discovery.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby jkeyes1000 » March 30th, 2018, 8:09 pm

As everyone here seems to agree that both Erdnase and Sanders were proud of their literary efforts, why would the author of EATCT not keep a copy for himself?

Presumably it was printed in a small quantity, as it is a very scarce item. It seems extremely unlikely that, fearing that he might never again see a copy of his work, or fearing that it might simply "vanish into thin air" (become lost or destroyed due to neglect), he would part with absolutely every one.

This logic ought to apply to any and all candidates. Certainly, both Gallaway and Sanders.

If I dreaded that my life's work might not be preserved for posterity, I would surely keep a copy, if only to improve its chances of remaining extant.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 10:14 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:I have read EATCT just now, and pulled a few lines that I think are especially significant. If anyone can match a number of these, it would surely bolster his case.

"with the sublimest unconcern" and "unostentatious' (an apparent preference for 'un' words)

"We bucked the tiger"

"made like a flash", "in a flash" etc.


I found some words written by Sanders from the reunion book that match:

1. with UNWHISPERED request
2. humour would FLASH and beam in him as FLASH the lightnings

The us of the pronoun WE is everywhere in the pages written by Sanders.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 10:54 pm

lybrary wrote:All in my ebook. I can highly recommend that you read it.


Gallaway was not Erdnase so there is no motivation to purchase your e-book. I haven't bothered to track down a copy of The Man Who was Erdnse since I don't believe M. F. Andrews was Erdnase either.


lybrary wrote:It plays a part in the story since Atlas is one dealer we know purchased likely a good load of copies of Expert, and Atlas is joined at the hip to Roterberg, mostly retails their inventory and Sorensen did work for Roterberg at some point in time. So the question is how did Erdnase get to know Sorensen? Living next door to Roterberg provides a good answer to that question.


This isn't clear, but no matter. An outsider like Sanders could have traveled to Chicago and publish/distribute his book. It wasn't necessary to live in close proximity to Roterberg.

lybrary wrote:If you would understand what it cost me to find these files you would know it wasn't a profit making operation. These files have answered and confirmed many questions we had about McKinney, and they did lead me to Gallaway, so it definitely had a huge impact on the Erdnase search. That they do not provide any further evidence for Sanders is indication that Sanders isn't Erdnase.


It's easy to understand what you paid to track down the McKinney bankruptcy files, just post the dollar amount here. That they do not provide further evidence of Sanders only indicates that there is no further evidence of Sanders. I suppose that those files are helpful if one is researching the history of the McKinney company. If one is searching those files for the identity of Erdnase, they are useless.

lybrary wrote:We do not know if Sanders spoke enough German as an adult to actually read and understand these German magic books. But he certainly does benefit somewhat from that new discovery.


Yes he does benefit from that discovery.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 30th, 2018, 11:02 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:
lybrary wrote:It plays a part in the story since Atlas is one dealer we know purchased likely a good load of copies of Expert, and Atlas is joined at the hip to Roterberg, mostly retails their inventory and Sorensen did work for Roterberg at some point in time. So the question is how did Erdnase get to know Sorensen? Living next door to Roterberg provides a good answer to that question.
This isn't clear, but no matter. An outsider like Sanders could have traveled to Chicago and publish/distribute his book. It wasn't necessary to live in close proximity to Roterberg.
Richard Hatch and Bill Mullins have made a 1.3 mile proximity to Atlas a big part of the case for E.S. Andrews.
Leonard Hevia wrote:
lybrary wrote:We do not know if Sanders spoke enough German as an adult to actually read and understand these German magic books. But he certainly does benefit somewhat from that new discovery.
Yes he does benefit from that discovery.
What evidence is there that Sanders spoke German well enough when he was an adult?
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 30th, 2018, 11:39 pm

lybrary wrote:Richard Hatch and Bill Mullins have made a 1.3 mile proximity to Atlas a big part of the case for E.S. Andrews.


I also don't believe their railroad train worker E.S. Andrews was Erdnase, and wholeheartedly agree with David Alexander that the name reversal was a red herring to derail those that attempted to follow that trail:

Erdnase knew what he had created was well beyond anything then written or likely to be written for years to come and said so, and yet we are supposed to believe that this clever, intelligent, well educated man, in his desire for anonymity, chose to hide his name by the simplistic expedient of writing it backward.


lybrary wrote:What evidence is there that Sanders spoke German well enough when he was an adult?


The same amount of evidence that Erdnase had a copy of his book and fit in the thin wedge of your Ven diagram. Your own little world. Mathematics, linguistic pseudo science, tables, and charts...good Lord:

"If you want to be a good archeologist, you've got to get out of the library."

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 30th, 2018, 11:45 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:"If you want to be a good archeologist, you've got to get out of the library."
Except this is not archaeology. We are primarily talking about a book. Thus related books, linguistics, and other such matters are naturally at the very heart of the question.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 31st, 2018, 12:07 am

lybrary wrote:Except this is not archaeology. We are primarily talking about a book. Thus related books, linguistics, and other such matters are naturally at the very heart of the question.


It's primarily about a man, the book is the archeological evidence left behind. Linguistic pseudoscience, charts, tables, and Ven diagrams will never get you to the heart of the man. Documents, personal correspondence, and newspaper articles are far better at that.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby jkeyes1000 » March 31st, 2018, 8:29 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote:I have read EATCT just now, and pulled a few lines that I think are especially significant. If anyone can match a number of these, it would surely bolster his case.

"with the sublimest unconcern" and "unostentatious' (an apparent preference for 'un' words)

"We bucked the tiger"

"made like a flash", "in a flash" etc.


I found some words written by Sanders from the reunion book that match:

1. with UNWHISPERED request
2. humour would FLASH and beam in him as FLASH the lightnings

The us of the pronoun WE is everywhere in the pages written by Sanders.


Such discoveries are good for inductive logic, but now we need to apply the deductive kind, and show how other candidates did not use similar language. Yes, such words do seem uncommon in relation to the general public, but are they distinct from those of other writers? That is to say, it's a start, but you still have a long way to go.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 8:53 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:I suppose that those files are helpful if one is researching the history of the McKinney company. If one is searching those files for the identity of Erdnase, they are useless.
This can only be written by somebody who doesn't understand how a book is made. A publisher has many points of interaction with the printer. They have to agree on format, paper, typeface, and binding of the book. The publisher needs to sign off on the quote the printer makes and likely make an upfront payment in part or full for the printer to start. Then the publisher could be involved at various proof stages. At the very least he has to sign off on the galley proofs. And finally the publisher has to take possession of the printed books, or arrange storage at the printer. Since Expert was self-published Erdnase had to have all the interactions with McKinney that a publisher would normally have. The fact that McKinney is named as the contact on the copyright form further shows that McKinney played a central part in the Erdnase story. A better understanding of his operation is very helpful in the search for Erdnase. The fact that Sanders has zero known contact with McKinney is a major problem for his case.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Gilbert » March 31st, 2018, 9:34 am

At the same time, if Erdnase was "hiding" his real name from the buying public, wouldn't he be inclined to use a false name at the publisher?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Zenner » March 31st, 2018, 9:47 am

jkeyes1000 wrote: This brings up the question of marketing and distribution. Do we know how Erdnase sold EATCT? Did he sell it himself (in which case, he would have originally possessed all of the copies)? Did he sell them to magic shops, wholesale? Or did he simply sell his stock to an investor, who re-distributed them? Unless he really wanted nothing to do with the book after publishing it, he probably retained at least one copy.


My candidate retired from being a professional magician (including card magic in his repertoire) and became a BOOK AGENT. He sold books himself and recruited teams of book salesmen via small ads in The Chicago Tribune.

Not only that, he went bankrupt soon after Expert was published (he needed the money) and he appears in the McKinney Bankruptcy files (i.e. had a link with the printer). He was 41 at the time and his family was linked to the name Dalrymple. I also have a link between him and Emory Cobbe Andrews, the E.C. Andrews whose signature reads "E.S. Andrews" for some reason - yes the one who worked for the same ink company that Harry S. Thompson worked for.

What's not to like?

I have no doubt that "Erdnase" was Edward D. Benedict! :)
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 10:08 am

Tom Gilbert wrote:At the same time, if Erdnase was "hiding" his real name from the buying public, wouldn't he be inclined to use a false name at the publisher?
That depends who the candidate is. In my case, Gallaway was working at James McKinney and after McKinney goes bankrupt partners with him and starts McKinney & Gallaway. This makes Gallaway not only an employee but a business partner, likely a friend of McKinney. I am pretty sure McKinney knew that Gallaway was Erdnase. Gallaway not only self-published, but also ran Expert as his own project through McKinney's print shop with his approval/knowledge. That makes a lot of sense financially, because it allows him to produce the book on a budget. It also explains why McKinney is listed as the contact on the copyright form. Erdnase wanted to stay anonymous to the public, but there was certainly a group of friends and colleagues who knew who he was.

The whole 'needing the money' makes little sense as self-publisher, because any printer will want to have upfront payment. But if that self-publisher works at a printer and can print his own book there on a budget, it does not conflict with 'needing the money'.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » March 31st, 2018, 10:12 am

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Such discoveries are good for inductive logic, but now we need to apply the deductive kind, and show how other candidates did not use similar language. Yes, such words do seem uncommon in relation to the general public, but are they distinct from those of other writers? That is to say, it's a start, but you still have a long way to go.


While it's not conclusive, the similarities in the writing are numerous and striking (lexically, thematically, stylistically, and in the sense of the author's voice). That can't be explained away with facile statements like "it's a start". If you want to dispute the evidence, then you should come up with a large set of similarly compelling parallels for other candidates. i.e. who writes more like Erdnase than Sanders? We can then compare side-by-side.

For reference, here again are the correspondences that I've documented so far (I've been updating it regularly). It's organized so as to group examples together primarily by theme and topic. There are a couple sections at the end with more purely linguistically-centric examples that don't strongly highlight a common theme or topic. Note: I've marked all extracts that are from poems and bios as such. If there's any doubt, I suggest actually looking at the context. Unless I've made a mistake, all of then are unambiguously written by Sanders and in his voice.

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~coyne/erdna ... nguage.pdf

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » March 31st, 2018, 10:19 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:
I found some words written by Sanders from the reunion book that match:

1. with UNWHISPERED request
2. humour would FLASH and beam in him as FLASH the lightnings

The us of the pronoun WE is everywhere in the pages written by Sanders.


Good examples, I'll add those to my document. The UNWHISPERED one is particularly interesting! I hadn't noticed that before.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 31st, 2018, 11:04 am

lybrary wrote:This can only be written by somebody who doesn't understand how a book is made. A publisher has many points of interaction with the printer.


Your own smugness and arrogance is your worst enemy. Do you actually believe searching the McKinney bankruptcy files brought you any closer to the true identity of Erdnase? Do you actually believe that marketing your Gallaway claim into a business for your profit and ego in some way validates Gallaway more than any other candidate? You have confused profit with validation. Profit is not validation--it's just profit.

lybrary wrote:The fact that Sanders has zero known contact with McKinney is a major problem for his case.


The fact that Gallaway has pretty much no writing evidence that mirrors the works of Erdnase is a serious and glaring handicap in your argument for his candidacy. You have produced all manner of "evidence" out of your top hat like a magician but nothing significant in the way of writing material, which is really at the core of the The Expert. The McKinney bankruptcy files is a dry well and will not produce the necessary writing evidence you require to help you further validate Gallaway. In fact, the McKinney files have produced--nothing.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby jkeyes1000 » March 31st, 2018, 11:11 am

Zenner wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote: This brings up the question of marketing and distribution. Do we know how Erdnase sold EATCT? Did he sell it himself (in which case, he would have originally possessed all of the copies)? Did he sell them to magic shops, wholesale? Or did he simply sell his stock to an investor, who re-distributed them? Unless he really wanted nothing to do with the book after publishing it, he probably retained at least one copy.


My candidate retired from being a professional magician (including card magic in his repertoire) and became a BOOK AGENT. He sold books himself and recruited teams of book salesmen via small ads in The Chicago Tribune.

Not only that, he went bankrupt soon after Expert was published (he needed the money) and he appears in the McKinney Bankruptcy files (i.e. had a link with the printer). He was 41 at the time and his family was linked to the name Dalrymple. I also have a link between him and Emory Cobbe Andrews, the E.C. Andrews whose signature reads "E.S. Andrews" for some reason - yes the one who worked for the same ink company that Harry S. Thompson worked for.

What's not to like?

I have no doubt that "Erdnase" was Edward D. Benedict! :)


That is a very interesting angle. But it leaves one important question unanswered. Was he a writer?

Benedict might well have known Erdnase, and I could imagine him to be a business partner, and perhaps even a source of information about card magic. But what persuades you that he actually wrote the book?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 11:14 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:Do you actually believe searching the McKinney bankruptcy files brought you any closer to the true identity of Erdnase?
Yes they did. They allowed me to find Gallaway who is Erdnase.
Leonard Hevia wrote:The fact that Gallaway has pretty much no writing evidence that mirrors the works of Erdnase is a serious and glaring handicap in your argument for his candidacy.
Except the only linguistic study done on Erdnase by a recognized authority is the one by Olsson and he says Gallaway is the closest and Sanders is far far away from Erdnase. You and Bob are scared to do a real comparison, because it would show that most of the stuff on Bob's list is not significant. Bob has peddled his list for at least two years and has still not been able or willing to compare it against other authors. Why? What are you afraid of?
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 31st, 2018, 11:30 am

Bob Coyne wrote:While it's not conclusive, the similarities in the writing are numerous and striking (lexically, thematically, stylistically, and in the sense of the author's voice). That can't be explained away with facile statements like "it's a start". If you want to dispute the evidence, then you should come up with a large set of similarly compelling parallels for other candidates. i.e. who writes more like Erdnase than Sanders? We can then compare side-by-side.


Agreed Bob! The writing similarities are just too similar and compelling to be ignored and explained away. The answer to the mystery of Erdnase's true identity is in the writing--in the book. And yet there are those in the search for his identity who have paid lip service to this but stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the writing similarities between both authors.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 11:41 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:You have confused profit with validation.
If profit would be equal validation, Gallaway could never be Erdnase. Luckily that is not the case. Researching Erdnase is my passion. I do other things for profit.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 11:47 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:The answer to the mystery of Erdnase's true identity is in the writing--in the book. And yet there are those in the search for his identity who have paid lip service to this but stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the writing similarities between both authors.
Oh please, don't be a moron. I was one of the first who said that the best chance we have to identify Erdnase is through his writing, through linguistics, which provide a kind of 'fingerprint'. I was the first to really focus on it, hire an expert, and complemented it with my own analysis, which continues to this date. I have encouraged you and Bob to improve on your list. Not only add more features to the list, but evaluate how relevant each one is, by comparison with other authors.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 31st, 2018, 11:47 am

lybrary wrote:Except the only linguistic study done on Erdnase by a recognized authority is the one by Olsson and he says Gallaway is the closest and Sanders is far far away from Erdnase. You and Bob are scared to do a real comparison, because it would show that most of the stuff on Bob's list is not significant. Bob has peddled his list for at least two years and has still not been able or willing to compare it against other authors. Why? What are you afraid of?


You' re a walking advertisement for your e-book merchandise invoking that quack Dr. Ollson. You sound more like a salesman peddling his wares than a researcher. The term "recognized authority" has always been a time worn strategy to sell a product or push an agenda down the the throats of people. Bob hasn't peddled his list to anyone. The only individual peddling his wares--is you. The list is Bob's and I am sure he will not mind if anyone wants to conduct further linguistic laboratory studies--nobody is afraid of anything here.

But I suspect that if any linguistic study of Bob's list confirmed a link between Sanders' writing and the author of The Expert, you would explain it away with some ridiculous reason.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Zenner » March 31st, 2018, 11:51 am

jkeyes1000 wrote:
Zenner wrote:
jkeyes1000 wrote: This brings up the question of marketing and distribution. Do we know how Erdnase sold EATCT? Did he sell it himself (in which case, he would have originally possessed all of the copies)? Did he sell them to magic shops, wholesale? Or did he simply sell his stock to an investor, who re-distributed them? Unless he really wanted nothing to do with the book after publishing it, he probably retained at least one copy.


My candidate retired from being a professional magician (including card magic in his repertoire) and became a BOOK AGENT. He sold books himself and recruited teams of book salesmen via small ads in The Chicago Tribune.

Not only that, he went bankrupt soon after Expert was published (he needed the money) and he appears in the McKinney Bankruptcy files (i.e. had a link with the printer). He was 41 at the time and his family was linked to the name Dalrymple. I also have a link between him and Emory Cobbe Andrews, the E.C. Andrews whose signature reads "E.S. Andrews" for some reason - yes the one who worked for the same ink company that Harry S. Thompson worked for.

What's not to like?

I have no doubt that "Erdnase" was Edward D. Benedict! :)


That is a very interesting angle. But it leaves one important question unanswered. Was he a writer?

Benedict might well have known Erdnase, and I could imagine him to be a business partner, and perhaps even a source of information about card magic. But what persuades you that he actually wrote the book?


I posted my new candidate’s details on the Genii Forum. See page 123. I also copied and pasted an article he wrote on coin manipulation. You will see that there as well. It was enough to convince me. I presume that he thought he had covered cards in his book.

The magic word for me, the one that got me researching his life, was "Dalrymple"...
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 11:54 am

Leonard Hevia wrote:that quack Dr. Ollson.
Can you substantiate this? Have you read any of his work, any of his court testimony? He is considered a pioneer and expert of authorship attribution.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby jkeyes1000 » March 31st, 2018, 12:01 pm

Leonard Hevia wrote:
Bob Coyne wrote:While it's not conclusive, the similarities in the writing are numerous and striking (lexically, thematically, stylistically, and in the sense of the author's voice). That can't be explained away with facile statements like "it's a start". If you want to dispute the evidence, then you should come up with a large set of similarly compelling parallels for other candidates. i.e. who writes more like Erdnase than Sanders? We can then compare side-by-side.


Agreed Bob! The writing similarities are just too similar and compelling to be ignored and explained away. The answer to the mystery of Erdnase's true identity is in the writing--in the book. And yet there are those in the search for his identity who have paid lip service to this but stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the writing similarities between both authors.


This might be a difficult concept to explain, but I will try to do it simply and clearly.

Just showing the similarity between two authors is not enough. That could easily be a random coincidence. Few words or phrases are exclusively owned by one author. Writers learn how to write by reading other books, and they adopt expressions conceived by others.

In order to make a good argument using linguistic analysis, you need to take those similarities and whittle at them, cut away the far too common examples, and focus on the verbiage that is most dissimilar to those in average use, and especially dissimilar to those of qualified candidates.

I know it is a formidable task, but it is not the responsibility of the sceptic to provide this information. Without it, you have only a possibility. You do not have a likelihood.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » March 31st, 2018, 12:02 pm

lybrary wrote:
Leonard Hevia wrote:Do you actually believe searching the McKinney bankruptcy files brought you any closer to the true identity of Erdnase?
Yes they did. They allowed me to find Gallaway who is Erdnase.
Leonard Hevia wrote:The fact that Gallaway has pretty much no writing evidence that mirrors the works of Erdnase is a serious and glaring handicap in your argument for his candidacy.
Except the only linguistic study done on Erdnase by a recognized authority is the one by Olsson and he says Gallaway is the closest and Sanders is far far away from Erdnase. You and Bob are scared to do a real comparison, because it would show that most of the stuff on Bob's list is not significant. Bob has peddled his list for at least two years and has still not been able or willing to compare it against other authors. Why? What are you afraid of?


I've yet to see evidence of Gallaway's similarity to Erdnase. Nothing popped out at me when I read through parts of it when you first proposed it. In fact , as I recall, some of it was jarringly different. It's fine that you've found a couple unusual words in common (e.g. "subterfuge"), but that doesn't convey anything significant about the style, voice, or common themes. Plus with Erdnase/Sanders there are many more shared unusual words (contrivances, longitudinal, vocation, axiom, curriculum, post-graduate, culled, countenance,...) not to mention many idioms ("on the square", "sufficiently answered",...), unusual lexical patterns, stylistic quirks (scare quotes, colloquialisms) and thematic similarities. Maybe they're there for Gallaway, but I haven't seen it.

Also, I haven't been "peddling" anything for a couple years. Instead, I've been identifying, compiling, and organizing the various excerpts when I notice something significant, because I think documenting them is good way to better understand and size up the similarities. I'd be very happy (time willing) to compare against a Gallaway list. But there's nothing remotely comparable to do that with.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 31st, 2018, 12:10 pm

lybrary wrote:
Leonard Hevia wrote:that quack Dr. Ollson.
Can you substantiate this? Have you read any of his work, any of his court testimony? He is considered a pioneer and expert of authorship attribution.



A quack without equivocation. Gammar theory is not an empirical science.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » March 31st, 2018, 12:22 pm

jkeyes1000 wrote:This might be a difficult concept to explain, but I will try to do it simply and clearly.

Just showing the similarity between two authors is not enough. That could easily be a random coincidence. Few words or phrases are exclusively owned by one author. Writers learn how to write by reading other books, and they adopt expressions conceived by others.

In order to make a good argument using linguistic analysis, you need to take those similarities and whittle at them, cut away the far too common examples, and focus on the verbiage that is most dissimilar to those in average use, and especially dissimilar to other qualified candidates.

I know it is a formidable task, but it is not the responsibility of the sceptic to provide this information. Without it, you have only a possibility. You do not have a likelihood.


This is incorrect, or at least incomplete. It's not just rare occurrences but frequency of signature themes/lexicon even if they're relatively common. If a somewhat common term or phrase/idiom is used very frequently, especially when clustered thematically, then it's also significant. For example, with Erdnase, there's a whole cluster or terms related to excellence (far in advance, utmost, etc) as well as logic/rigor (proof, axiom, etc). Plus process-oriented terms he seems to like (e.g. employed, invariably, sufficiently, satisfactory). These count for a lot too and it's important to identify them in order to see how the two writers are similar. In my document, I've differentiated between the cases (lexical vs thematic vs lexical/thematic). So there's no excuse for failing to pay attention to the distinction.

If what you're really asking for is a quantitative analysis, then sure ok. But that's not necessarily the best step with the data at hand, though I'm all for attempts being made in that direction (with all the concomitant pitfalls and difficulties). However, it's not necessary to quantify in order to make a strong case. We can hear a voice and immediately know who is talking, see a face and recognize the person. The same goes (to a lesser degree) with writing. For example, I can easily pick out your writing style versus others on this forum now after having seen a number of your posts. And if I wanted to spend the time I could characterize it with salient examples. We learn from examples and hone our intuitions and ability to make identifications by examples. So let's just acknowledge that fact.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Leonard Hevia » March 31st, 2018, 12:26 pm

"Also, I haven't been "peddling" anything for a couple years. Instead, I've been identifying, compiling, and organizing the various excerpts when I notice something significant, because I think documenting them is good way to better understand and size up the similarities. I'd be very happy (time willing) to compare against a Gallaway list. But there's nothing remotely comparable to do that with."



Hear, hear, Bob!
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby lybrary » March 31st, 2018, 12:39 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:If a somewhat common term or phrase/idiom is used very frequently, ...
Yes, but you haven't shown that. To make that argument you have to show how often Sanders uses it per number of words, how often Erdnase uses it per number of words, and how often other authors used it per number of words. If Sanders and Erdnase are the only ones who use it much more often than others you have a point. But you refuse to put any quantitative measure on your list, yet you try to make quantitative arguments. That doesn't work.

When you take your list of words: contrivances, longitudinal, vocation, axiom, curriculum, post-graduate, culled, countenance,... and put it in the Google Ngram viewer you will see that most aren't particularly rare in 1902.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby jkeyes1000 » March 31st, 2018, 12:51 pm

Bob: The more common words and phrases are only significant as collateral evidence. You must establish the uncommon first, and provide plenty of them. After you show the exceptional coincidences, you can support your argument with the ordinary examples.

It is possible (believe me, I know!) to find hundreds of common expressions, and still have virtuality no evidence. The idiosyncrasies are 90% of the 'burden of proof", though they may constitute only 10% of the data.


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