Zodiackillersite.com

Agreed, G. Perhaps it's not the best application of the Occam's Razor argument. I'm just saying that poor spelling would seem to be a simpler explanation than systematic intentional misspelling. Simpler, as you point out, doesn't always mean correct.

entropy wrote:To me, there is nothing contrived about Z's handwriting, at least in the early letters. It's written very freely, almost sloppily and it's difficult for me to imagine him carefully thinking about specific spelling rules to screw up while writing that way.

That's the issue for me. Hard to accept that these mistakes were purposeful, given the hastiness with which (most of) the letters appear to have been written. To help convince myself otherwise, I tried to find an example where Z spelled "ing" words correctly after previously inserting an "e" before the "ing" (e.g., having vs. haveing). Couldn't find any. The only ones I found that did not include the "e" were "writing", "bouncing", "anilating" (sic), and "leaving". And those words were only used one time each to my knowledge.

entropy wrote:Agreed, G. Perhaps it's not the best application of the Occam's Razor argument. I'm just saying that poor spelling would seem to be a simpler explanation than systematic intentional misspelling. Simpler, as you point out, doesn't always mean correct.

To be honest, my comment wasn't really directed at anybody in particular. I have been carrying a speech in my head for a long time. Just saw an opportunity to insert it here.

G

wattafrikkinpedantiam

Who else would be concerned about analyzing 45 year old spelling mistakes besides us pedants, G? Somebody's gotta do it.

I suspect that the majority of the spelling mistakes are tied to Z's excitement and haste. It takes a certain amount of neurological control to self-monitor. Conversely, it seems plausible that the majority of his correct spellings should correspond to his being in a calmer mental state.

Can anybody advise if they see evidence of a correspondence between spelling accuracy levels and likely mental states in his handwriting? Or is that beyond our collective skillset?

I was thinking maybe Trav might have an opinion.

Tks,

G

I should be embarassed to say it, but one of my favorite pasttimes is lecturing people who are way smarter and more knowledgeable than I am. It's very edifying.

ggluckman wrote:I suspect that the majority of the spelling mistakes are tied to Z's excitement and haste. It takes a certain amount of neurological control to self-monitor. Conversely, it seems plausible that the majority of his correct spellings should correspond to his being in a calmer mental state.

Can anybody advise if they see evidence of a correspondence between spelling accuracy levels and likely mental states in his handwriting? Or is that beyond our collective skillset?

I was thinking maybe Trav might have an opinion.

Tks,

G

I should be embarassed to say it, but one of my favorite pasttimes is lecturing people who are way smarter and more knowledgeable than I am. It's very edifying.

Not my area I'm afraid. I just look at shapes and hypothesise based on my own graphics experience.

ggluckman wrote:I suspect that the majority of the spelling mistakes are tied to Z's excitement and haste. It takes a certain amount of neurological control to self-monitor. Conversely, it seems plausible that the majority of his correct spellings should correspond to his being in a calmer mental state.

Can anybody advise if they see evidence of a correspondence between spelling accuracy levels and likely mental states in his handwriting? Or is that beyond our collective skillset?

Just my opinion, but in terms of handwriting at least, I feel like the "Belli" letter is probably the calmest and least manic Zodiac letter of them all, but it is still full of spelling errors.

Christmass
extreamly
dificult
nineth
posibly
victom
drownding
triger
loose (instead of lose)
controol (but he had it right, twice)

-glurk

Bumping this old thread - because I find the topic very interesting.

Some comments/observations (most of this has been touched on already in this thread):

If Z did misspell on purpose, he did so in a very peculiar manner. And if he did it in order to appear uneducated, he did a remarkably poor job. He misspells “woeman” and “cid” but manages to spell “photoelectric” flawlessly.

If he tried to appear uneducated, I'm tempted to conclude that he was educated but not very clever.

The more I think about it, the less probable it seems that these misspellings are deliberate – at least not in the sense that he was trying to cover his tracks.

Observation: The many instances of Z failing to drop his e's (“lyeing”, “haveing”, “useing”, “raceing”) are good examples of either:

a) a genuinely poor speller * or, more probably, a writer who lacks formal education beyond a certain level,

or

b) a fairly clever faker

The same goes for the trouble Z apparently has with double consonants (“coupple”, “bussy”, “allready”, “posibly”, “dificult”).

These errors are very consistent and appear throughout the whole series of more or less uncontested Z letters.

But the fairly clever faker completely drops the ball when he goes on to spell “ammonium nitrate” and whatnot without difficulty. He also opts for some pretty outlandish misspellings, like “cid” and “cerous”.

Possibility: Z may have, simply, reproduced words like “photoelectric” (directly) from a book, which explains why he got them right.

Possibility: “cid”, “Christmass”, “doo” and similar examples may be due to some sort of humor on Z's part. They are, at any rate, completely at odds with the idea of someone misspelling on purpose in order to appear uneducated (again, unless the person doing so was anything but clever).

Observation: On more than one occasion Z corrects his own spelling, crossing out misspelled words, etc. This is very curious if he was trying to fool his pursuers. Look at “NO ADDRESS” in the “debut of Zodiac” letter: He has clearly spelled it “ADRESS” initially, but then – seemingly – realized that it looked off somehow, and added a “D” (this being visibly “squeezed” in).

MORE TO FOLLOW

* Most well educated people who are poor spellers tend not to make mistakes of the “haveing” kind. They're more “sloppy” spellers than anything.

Yes, it's a bit of a swindling religious percussion.

I mean how do you misspell 'doo'? Surely you can't or rather don't. I think he's being 'clever' in the smart ass sense. Quite literally messing with people. In a weird way it's quite clever but I'd be hard pressed to ascribe that as the intention in its purest form. My take on it is sort of like a private joke that can also serve a purpose. I suspect he was probably aware of the questions his 'spellings' would provoke and probably revelled in the assumptions printed and broadcast. It's also prolonged attention. People analyzing them for clues or hints as to who he might be or his background. It keeps the spotlight on him so he doesn't get "awfully lonely"

Yes - it's some kind of game. At least partly. And it's no doubt a rather private one at that - i.e. the "doo", "cid" and so forth are for his private amusement more than anything.

I also agree that it partly serves a smoke screen purpose, but not in the sense that he's using the misspellings directly in order to throw his pursuers off, i.e. pretending to be a poorer speller than he is. I think he IS a poor speller, but also a very idiosyncratic and...jocular/sarcastic/something of that sort...one. But his game works as a smoke screen in the sense that it adds to the confusion: Who is he? Educated or not? Light opera buff or insane "moralist"? Keep 'em guessing.

Possibility: His jocular/sarcastic/something of that sort...spelling of certain words may have been something he liked to engage in also when he wasn't in Z mode.