Here is a picture of Wm Neil who was an actor in the Mikado in S.F 1969.

Hi Sandy-

I am answering your question on the Mr. X thread. so as not to hijack this one.

Mike

Nice to have, thanks Tahoe, and yes I too agree that this is the version he quoted in the letter of July 26th 1970, which may be found here (amongst many other places, of course). http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer_letters

Whether he quoted it from memory, or just wrote it down as he was listening to it, is open to debate, I think.
Personally, I believe he wrote the lyrics while listening to the song repeatedly, since had he momorised it he might have thought through some of his "mistakes" a few times and made some corrections. I’m thinking of the wretched mess that is "And all third persons who with unspoiling take thoes who insist", and the serious mangling in "… the lady from the provences who dress like a guy who doesn’t cry and the singurly abnormily the girl who never kissed" – where missing lyrics destroy the metre completely.

But this is conjecture of course. The important thing is no, I don’t think that the Groucho version being the source is debatable.

Just came across this a few moments ago. An amazing find by Tahoe27.

My impression–just an impression–is that Z learned this somwhat unconsciously, through repetition, but not understanding every thing. He makes seems not to have grasped phrases like "tete-a-tete", "puff it", and "nisi prius". Probably many adults would not have understood tete-a-tete or nisi prius, but seemed surprising to me that he replaced "puff it" with "phomphit". That mistake made me think he may have heard it many times as a child–is it likely his parents had a recording of the play?–but also made me wonder if he comes from a non-English speaking background. A similar mistake is evident in how the phrase "and floor you with ’em flat" becomes "implore you with im platt". These last two suggest somebody who doesn’t understand the words, only to replace them with made-up words. I remember making similar mistakes as a child–mistakes like replacing misheard lyrics with nonsense words–especially when learning songs in other languages.

One of the phrases that you pointed out smithy, strike me as a rather different kind of mistake: "… the lady from the provences who dress like a guy who doesn’t cry and the singurly abnormily the girl who never kissed". For some reason Z stumbles over these lyrics–he "loses the metre completely", as you very aptly put it.

It strikes me that there may be a very different reason for Z to make a mistake at this point: I suspect it is because these words have a special significance to Z: I suspect Z remembered the words that carried the image that mattered to her, but completely forgot some of the nearby words that did not fit within the special context that made them significant within Z’s own emotional world. And that cuased him to lose the metre so completely at that point.

Great post.

G

A propos of nothing, perhaps Z’s first encounter with The Mikado was the 1960 TV broadcast with Groucho. After that, maybe he picked up the album at a record store… or the library.

Yes, I think that is very much a possibility Barry. It was on NBC back then.

My impression–just an impression–is that Z learned this somwhat unconsciously, through repetition, but not understanding every thing. He makes seems not to have grasped phrases like "tete-a-tete", "puff it", and "nisi prius". Probably many adults would not have understood tete-a-tete or nisi prius, but seemed surprising to me that he replaced "puff it" with "phomphit". That mistake made me think he may have heard it many times as a child–is it likely his parents had a recording of the play?–but also made me wonder if he comes from a non-English speaking background. A similar mistake is evident in how the phrase "and floor you with ’em flat" becomes "implore you with im platt". These last two suggest somebody who doesn’t understand the words, only to replace them with made-up words. I remember making similar mistakes as a child–mistakes like replacing misheard lyrics with nonsense words–especially when learning songs in other languages.

This is an interesting observation.

I just got around to listening the Groucho Marx version of this song. Out of curiosity, I intentionally listened it before reading the correct lyrics in the first post, so as to make a note how the words sound to me, and whether there’s any parts that are unclear (I’m not an English native speaker). It seems I got the words wrong in quite same spots as Z did. The part about children sounds completely illegible, I just hear "flaw you with imphlatt" which makes about as little sense as Z’s "implore you with implatt". Same with the tete-a-tete line.

I’ve seen some speculation about English not being Z’s first language, which, in my opinion, shouldn’t be entirely disregarded as an option. The words he uses in his letters, such as "shall", "nasty" and "properly" are really common expressions in English classes in Europe ever since the first lessons, because the variation taught back then (and probably still today) is British English. That, combined with all the strange spellings in his letters and the "drawl" that Hartnell heard give the scenario some plausibility (or then Zodiac definitely did have some form of dyslexia).