Not so puzzeling…you ever hang with crazy nuts who gave iq’s 150 and above??? ..most cant spell a word yet can explain string theory….no i am not surprised z could not spell….many smarty types struggle in areas us average crazy types take for granted….
It’s puzzling because some of the supposed misspellings are clearly just using an archaic version of the spelling. Some seem to be actual misspellings as well, but I have only checked on a few, all of them might be archaic spellings.
The misspellings were intentional in my opinion, I listed some potential reasons for this earlier.
I do not think misspellings of this type could be unintentional, as was mentioned, some are archaic spellings of the words, some appear to be portmanteau words, and others imply accent, such as "Paul averly" instead of "avery" could be implying a cockney pronunciation of the name. I could be entirely wrong, but the misspellings seem entirely intentional, plus, sometimes a word will be misspelled and others the same word will appear with the correct spelling.
The misspellings were intentional in my opinion, I listed some potential reasons for this earlier.
I do not think misspellings of this type could be unintentional, as was mentioned, some are archaic spellings of the words, some appear to be portmanteau words, and others imply accent, such as "Paul averly" instead of "avery" could be implying a cockney pronunciation of the name. I could be entirely wrong, but the misspellings seem entirely intentional, plus, sometimes a word will be misspelled and others the same word will appear with the correct spelling.
Agreed, which is why I think there is a potential for a "clew" in these words. I think the best clue would be finding regional type expressions.
One example I will give is the use of the term "prowl cars" to describe police units. I’m 55 years old, from Texas and never in my life do I recall seeing or hearing "prowl car" used, I’ve always heard them called "patrol cars", or simply "cop cars/police cars".
"Prowl cars" turns up in some older literature, so it was used in the past. That could mean Zodiac was older, or just that he was familiar with it through reading and older movies. It could also be a regional thing though. If we could find other uses of regional terms, that would be a strong clue of where he was from originally.
The misspellings were intentional in my opinion, I listed some potential reasons for this earlier.
I do not think misspellings of this type could be unintentional, as was mentioned, some are archaic spellings of the words, some appear to be portmanteau words, and others imply accent, such as "Paul averly" instead of "avery" could be implying a cockney pronunciation of the name. I could be entirely wrong, but the misspellings seem entirely intentional, plus, sometimes a word will be misspelled and others the same word will appear with the correct spelling.
Agreed, which is why I think there is a potential for a "clew" in these words. I think the best clue would be finding regional type expressions.
One example I will give is the use of the term "prowl cars" to describe police units. I’m 55 years old, from Texas and never in my life do I recall seeing or hearing "prowl car" used, I’ve always heard them called "patrol cars", or simply "cop cars/police cars".
"Prowl cars" turns up in some older literature, so it was used in the past. That could mean Zodiac was older, or just that he was familiar with it through reading and older movies. It could also be a regional thing though. If we could find other uses of regional terms, that would be a strong clue of where he was from originally.
Very interesting, and a great idea.
I have always said that we must minimize the klews zodiac spoon-fed to us and look for mistakes, look for things which May have unintentionally slipped by zodiac’s radar, if we catch any true mistakes we can likely catch zodiac.
…so I like your thinking here, and I have also never heard this particular term being mentioned as a clue.
I am young, just barely into thirties, so I may not be fully familiar with regional terms, specially those which were used in the 1960s and prior, but I think this may not be a dead end, and will make a point to keep an eye out for any other such regional or identifying terms.
(Though zodiac may have been careful to use terms in the letters which he would not use in daily life, and may have thought ahead on this point, even "planting" terms to generate false leads… …its difficult because we don’t truly know the psychology of who we are dealing with, I do not know if I am dealing with a genius, with a crazy, or with a fool, so attempting to assess zodiac’s psychological process and attempting to derive anything useful from doing such can be a fruitless venture)
(Though zodiac may have been careful to use terms in the letters which he would not use in daily life, and may have thought ahead on this point, even "planting" terms to generate false leads… …its difficult because we don’t truly know the psychology of who we are dealing with, I do not know if I am dealing with a genius, with a crazy, or with a fool, so attempting to assess zodiac’s psychological process and attempting to derive anything useful from doing such can be a fruitless venture)
True he might have done much of this intentionally, we don’t know. Even then however, things can slip through just because it seems the normal way to say it to you, but in reality it is a regional thing. I read through some of his letters last night again but didn’t really notice anything that stands out as regional, but then, it if isn’t from my region I wouldn’t notice.
I thought it was a bit curious in the one letter about BRS he said "peeled rubber". I’m familiar with "burnt rubber" and "peeled out", but not "peeled rubber", so I wonder if that is another regional thing.
The one thing I noticed is it seems he has a very deliberate way of speaking. He doesn’t throw in a lot of slang or "street talk". Like he usually says "police" instead of "cops". He does say "pigs" and "blue meanies" but that’s popular culture of the times speak.
Not sure if any of this means any thing or if they could be a "tell".
(Though zodiac may have been careful to use terms in the letters which he would not use in daily life, and may have thought ahead on this point, even "planting" terms to generate false leads… …its difficult because we don’t truly know the psychology of who we are dealing with, I do not know if I am dealing with a genius, with a crazy, or with a fool, so attempting to assess zodiac’s psychological process and attempting to derive anything useful from doing such can be a fruitless venture)
True he might have done much of this intentionally, we don’t know. Even then however, things can slip through just because it seems the normal way to say it to you, but in reality it is a regional thing. I read through some of his letters last night again but didn’t really notice anything that stands out as regional, but then, it if isn’t from my region I wouldn’t notice.
I thought it was a bit curious in the one letter about BRS he said "peeled rubber". I’m familiar with "burnt rubber" and "peeled out", but not "peeled rubber", so I wonder if that is another regional thing.
The one thing I noticed is it seems he has a very deliberate way of speaking. He doesn’t throw in a lot of slang or "street talk". Like he usually says "police" instead of "cops". He does say "pigs" and "blue meanies" but that’s popular culture of the times speak.
Not sure if any of this means any thing or if they could be a "tell".
Not sure either, but good thinking. I am going to continue on this path as well…
I actually think that "needling the blue pigs" "blue meanie" and the frequent use of the term "pig" as a reference to police was significant in some way…
The asking us to "wear nice zodiac buttons", then mentioning "peace sign", "black power" and "Melvin eats blubber" seemed significant as well… …I mean, it’s not regional, it’s what you would expect from San franpsycho, but it is cultural, almost a countercultural reference of sorts, not sure what it means, but I think it’s significant.
Wasn’t it also strange that zodiac said "I hope you don’t think I wiped out that blue meanie with a bomb at the cop station even though I talked about blowing up a bus with one" or he said something to that effect, I find it strange because zodiac generally takes credit for crimes he did not commit, yet he is certain to assure us that he did NOT kill a cop with a bomb? It’s odd…
On a note of the zodiac misspellings:
I kept thinking about the misspelling "clew" and what was mentioned about archaic spellings, I knew I had seen this before…
…and just now it him me, the minotuar! The labyrinth myth! The ball of red thread! The "clew"!
The word “clue,” as in “a piece of evidence used as a guide in solving a mystery or a problem,” originally means “a ball of thread,” and it was spelled “clew.” What’s thread got to do with clues? The answer is in the story of Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur.
One year Theseus, the son of the king of Athens, decides to go to Crete in order to kill the Minotaur and stop the sacrifices. When Theseus arrives in Crete he meets Ariadne, the king’s daughter, and she falls in love with him. Theseus tells Ariadne that he intends to kill the Minotaur and that he will marry her if she helps him. That’s when Ariadne gives him a ball of thread, called a “clew,” which Daedalus had given her, and she tells Theseus how to find his way back out of the labyrinth with it:
The word “clew” therefore always meant both “a ball of thread” and “something that guides a person out of a difficult or mysterious situation.” The spelling changed from “clew” to the modern “clue,” and the word we use today was born. That’s the origin of clues in English.
http://www.thewestologist.com/words-and … n-of-clues
This should have been obvious, I am not sure why it took me this long to remember where I knew the origin spelling and meaning of "clue" from.
Not sure if this is significant in any way, but it is interesting.
Clew=Scotch origin (ball of yarn), used in British literature, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
This was part of speculation Z may have been foreigner. Now that we are seeing vivid theatrical nature of POI R Sullivan, and Z ‘Dangerous Game’ reference, we can imagine him reading detective stories as a kid.
I’m intrigued by the aspect of comics/detective magazines having an influence on Zodiac as evidenced in his writings, in particular that some of the misspellings are actually old uses of the words. Being a fan of comic books and such myself when I was younger, I know how they can lead to reading more substantive things, like novels and even poetry.
I’ve done the same myself, I like older writings and have read some of the old poets, so I decided to read through some of Zodiac’s letters to familiarize myself with them and have also been going through some older literature, mostly poetry, to see if I can notice any thing that seems similar or familiar to what Zodiac wrote.
After randomly searching through some older works. I realized I needed to narrow my search and needed something to use as a guide. I started with the Mikado, since we know he was familiar with it. Not a poem or a novel, but close enough.
After reading through it, it’s actually pretty dark, a lot of stuff about killing and executions. I came away wondering just how much influence it had on Zodiac and when it started influencing him. Seems to me the case can be made he based his whole persona and what he did on The Mikado. I’m going to post some things I notice, they probably mean nothing and I don’t claim they do, and they’ve probably already been noticed before now. So for what it’s worth, here they are.
That Zodiac killed more young couples stands out as to his motives. Much has been made of the opinion he killed to get back at people who had a successful social life. It’s though he has a hangup about it. If that’s true most likely it comes from his own experience in the past.
Why he became that way could be from several known reasons, unable to date, unlucky, whatever. It’s something that caused him great trouble and damage. Maybe he got into trouble for being too friendly or creepy with a girl or two, could have been his parents or school/work. Might have been illegal and law enforcement was involved but he got off of charges somehow.
The Mikado is all about someone who got into trouble (condemned to death) for "flirting" but being given a pardon and made the high executioner. Here’s a line from early on…
Act I, part II. A Wand’ring Minstrel I
…was condemned to death for flirting, but he was reprieved at the last moment,
and raised to the exalted rank of Lord High Executioner…
It’s a leap but maybe Zodiac saw himself this way, had gotten into some trouble but once out of it he decided he was the high executioner. He seems a bona fide executioner to me, I think that’s why he wore the hood at LB, it was his executioner’s hood. The "High Executioner, or "The Mikado" was the highest rank in the land and he was held above all.
Act I, part V. Behold the Lord High Executioner
CHORUS OF NOBLES
Behold the Lord High Executioner
A personage of noble rank and title-
A dignified and potent officer,
Whose functions are particularly vital!
Defer, defer,
To the Lord High Executioner!
Zodiac appears to be a self appointed judge, jury and executioner.
Our logical Mikado seeing no moral difference between the dignified judge that condemns a criminal to die,
and the industrious mechanic who carries out the sentence, has rolled the two offices into one,
and every judge is now his own executioner.
There’s more I’ve noticed, I’ll post it if anyone wants to see it.
Good post and yes I agree Mikado is significant — goes to ‘tone’…..eccentric ‘form’
I would take an hour and read the interview with Bryan Hartnel, who survived LB and take in his description of the ‘Executioner.’ The ‘low class’ ‘sloppy dress’ ‘uneducated’ yet something undefined which felt uniquely in ‘character’ a ‘drawl’ to speech….read it in Sherrifs report you can also see the DOJ summary of all 5 cases including Bates in Zodiak Files thread on first page.
One more here that seems to be all about how zodiac operated.
Act I, part III. Our Great Mikado, virtuous man
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mika … I/Part_III
PISH-TUSH
Our great Mikado, virtuous man,
When he to rule our land began,
Resolved to try
A plan whereby
Young men might best be steadied.
Here we have the Mikado reasoning young men are having too much fun with the girls and he plans to put a stop to it.
It’s thought Zodiac was resentful of those young men and women being "sociable".
So he decreed, in words succinct,
That all who flirted, leered or winked
(Unless connubially linked),
Should forthwith be beheaded,
So the Mikado then condemned to death anyone who was flirting or fooling around.
Zodiac did the same killing young couples out parking.
This stern decree, you’ll understand,
Caused great dismay throughout the land!
For young and old
And shy and bold
Were equally affected.
The youth who winked a roving eye,
Or breathed a non-connubial sigh,
Was thereupon condemned to die—…
The Mikado’s actions made everyone afraid.
Zodiac had everyone worried and afraid.
And so we straight let out on bail
A convict from the county jail,
Whose head was next
On some pretext
Condemned to be mown off,
And made him Headsman…
Again a mention of the guy being let out of jail and became the high executioner.
Zodiac mentioned to Hartnell that he had escaped from prison.
Very interesting analysis about the Mikado content CuriousCat! It’s such a peculiar choice for an inspiration but ties into his obvious preoccupation with old-fashioned terms and spellings… somehow it’d be far less strange if Zodiac would have quoted something like The Rolling Stones.
Today I was reading about Jack the Ripper. The Dear Boss letter has a whole bunch of similarity with Zodiac’s communique, all the way down to use of language. Actually it’s like all Zodiac’s material summed in one letter. I’m sure it’s been a source of inspiration, if not outright copying, for as well.
P.S. The term "prowl car" seems to have been most used in 1950 (according to Google Ngram). Quick search on Newspapers.com would indicate that it was used all over the U.S. Perhaps detective magazines from the 40s-50s familiarised Z with this word.
I actually think the minotuar myth was significant, and the the use of the misspelling "clew" referenced this.
Was zodiac the "minotuar", with his intense lust for blood? So much so that sacrifices were offered? Were the "clews" a map for a "Theseus" to find him and "stop the sacrifices?"
He would talk about false "clews", false lines of thread to follow, though this doesn’t mean there were not any real ones…
…though, this is just some fun comparison work, I am uncertain if zodiac actually had any of this in mind…
I found out some incredibly interesting stuff…but I can’t post it yet.
Though I still have these questions:
actually think that "needling the blue pigs" "blue meanie" and the frequent use of the term "pig" as a reference to police was significant in some way…
The asking us to "wear nice zodiac buttons", then mentioning "peace sign", "black power" and "Melvin eats blubber" seemed significant as well… …I mean, it’s not regional, it’s what you would expect from San franpsycho, but it is cultural, almost a countercultural reference of sorts, not sure what it means, but I think it’s significant.
Wasn’t it also strange that zodiac said "I hope you don’t think I wiped out that blue meanie with a bomb at the cop station even though I talked about blowing up a bus with one" or he said something to that effect, I find it strange because zodiac generally takes credit for crimes he did not commit, yet he is certain to assure us that he did NOT kill a cop with a bomb? It’s odd…
So, you guys think it is Sullivan?
I think Sullivan probably killed Cheri jo Bates, but am uncertain if he, and he alone, was zodiac.
Clew=Scotch origin (ball of yarn), used in British literature, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
This was part of speculation Z may have been foreigner. Now that we are seeing vivid theatrical nature of POI R Sullivan, and Z ‘Dangerous Game’ reference, we can imagine him reading detective stories as a kid.
Well, Greek initially, because the "clew" was a piece of a Greek myth, but yes, the word it self is of english/scottish origin:
before 900; Middle English clewe, Old English cleowen, cliewen, equivalent to cliew- (cognate with Old High German kliu ball) + -en -en5; akin to Dutch kluwen
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/clew
…and while there may have been a connection to classic detective novels or Sherlock Holmes, its the minotuar myth where I keep finding parallels.
Seriously though, I have found a lot of parallels between the minotuar myth and zodiac, even if they are coincidental
Though two of my biggest questions still are:
Why Dali days on the 13 moon calender? (Zodiac only killed on Dali days)
And
In the first cipher the "zodiac symbol" represented the letter "d", why?
These don’t seem like intentionally left "clews" as zodic never left them for us, we had to figure these things out on our own…
Very interesting analysis about the Mikado content CuriousCat! It’s such a peculiar choice for an inspiration but ties into his obvious preoccupation with old-fashioned terms and spellings… somehow it’d be far less strange if Zodiac would have quoted something like The Rolling Stones.
Today I was reading about Jack the Ripper. The Dear Boss letter has a whole bunch of similarity with Zodiac’s communique, all the way down to use of language. Actually it’s like all Zodiac’s material summed in one letter. I’m sure it’s been a source of inspiration, if not outright copying, for as well.
The Mikado seems to describe overall what Zodiac did. I found these lines in there that I thought were interesting in possibly being descriptive of Zodiac and his mindset.
When your time has come to perish,
Then the maiden whom you cherish
Must be slaughtered, too!
P.S. The term "prowl car" seems to have been most used in 1950 (according to Google Ngram). Quick search on Newspapers.com would indicate that it was used all over the U.S. Perhaps detective magazines from the 40s-50s familiarised Z with this word.
"Prowl car" and "clew" are both used in those old detective stories and comic books. Seems obvious that was his reference to much of it.
Very interesting analysis about the Mikado content CuriousCat! It’s such a peculiar choice for an inspiration but ties into his obvious preoccupation with old-fashioned terms and spellings… somehow it’d be far less strange if Zodiac would have quoted something like The Rolling Stones.
Today I was reading about Jack the Ripper. The Dear Boss letter has a whole bunch of similarity with Zodiac’s communique, all the way down to use of language. Actually it’s like all Zodiac’s material summed in one letter. I’m sure it’s been a source of inspiration, if not outright copying, for as well.
The Mikado seems to describe overall what Zodiac did. I found these lines in there that I thought were interesting in possibly being descriptive of Zodiac and his mindset.
When your time has come to perish,
Then the maiden whom you cherish
Must be slaughtered, too!P.S. The term "prowl car" seems to have been most used in 1950 (according to Google Ngram). Quick search on Newspapers.com would indicate that it was used all over the U.S. Perhaps detective magazines from the 40s-50s familiarised Z with this word.
"Prowl car" and "clew" are both used in those old detective stories and comic books. Seems obvious that was his reference to much of it.
So you really make no connections with the minotaur myth? Strange, I can see many.
