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 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.

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.

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.

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.

And then there’s the "little list" with the following…well, whatever they are:

"…implore you with im platt"; "phomphit" and "impriest".

Which don’t make sense on any level if we’re assuming that Z is misspelling deliberately. They don’t make sense as personal jokes either.

The only thing which does make sense is that Z has simply misheard what’s being sung – and written it down in this fashion. Which is, in my opinion, quite telling. As I’ve argued before, there are three possibilities here:

1. In Z’s mind these meaningless words had some meaning. In which case he was more nuts than some think. Or – a possibility brought up by murray a while ago in another thread – he was influenced by something when he prepared the letter.

2. He was gambling – for lack of a better term – on the words meaning something beyond his knowledge, i.e. being technical terms of some kind, perhaps, or jargon of some kind, or belonging to some sort of nomenclature he was unfamiliar with. In which case…yes – what? He arguably wasn’t a highly educated man – I think that’s fair to say.

3. He KNEW that he wasn’t making any sense. He didn’t understand what was being sung, but he just went on and wrote it down as he heard it regardless. In which case…yes, again, what?

I’m becoming more and more open to the possibility that Z was stoned, drunk or on some kind of medication when he composed his missives. Or at least some of his missives. The ciphers are seemingly too neatly done (not to mention that at least the 408 did make sense, with the odd mistake here and there) to have been prepared by someone who was totally out of it – but then again the effects of either drugs (legal and illegal) or alcohol influence people very differently. It’s not unthinkable that someone under the influence (even heavily) could have prepared those letters, in spite of them being coherent enough.

I think he misheard them and spelled them phonetically as best he could. The correct lyrics are posted here somewhere, but I kinda remember "implore you with im platt" = "and floor you with them flat" and "phomphit" = "puff it"

I think he misheard them and spelled them phonetically as best he could. The correct lyrics are posted here somewhere, but I kinda remember "implore you with im platt" = "and floor you with them flat" and "phomphit" = "puff it"

Yep, both the standard version and the Groucho Marx version (which is in all likelihood what Z based his letter on) are posted here.

And, yes – I think that’s precisely what he did: He misheard them and spelled them as best he could.

And what he ended up writing was nonsense. Mishearing lyrics and writing them down as something else is one thing. That’s the "Purple Haze" syndrome (the Hendrix song): "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" becomes "Excuse me while I kiss this guy". The latter phrase is wrong – but it makes sense. What Z did was something else entirely. He misheard the lyrics and wrote them down as complete nonsense.

And that says something about him – or so I think. It says something about the state and/or status of the man. Because this thing can’t possibly be explained away as a ruse of some kind. Or so I think.

Seems like I recall reading about purposely making spelling errors if you are trying to disguise your handwriting. Might help veer away from your natural tendencies?

Seems like I recall reading about purposely making spelling errors if you are trying to disguise your handwriting. Might help veer away from your natural tendencies?

Certainly. Generally, I accept that. But the Mikado stuff simply doesn’t fall into that category. There’s no way the examples above can be categorized as "spelling mistakes" in any shape or form. They are clearly something else.