Has anyone looked into the idea that english was not Z’s first language?

I have often felt like the mixed bag of cultural associations, the spelling mistakes and the odd turns of phrase that sometimes feel strained or awkward, could point to someone who may have had a different language as their primary tongue.

This is certainly a possibility, but the three people who spoke with him reported no discernible accent. Yes, both Hartnell and Slover reported that he had a unique way of speaking, but that had more to do with his cadence than an accent.

Again, I have seen American-born, English-first speakers who are just terrible spellers.

Another thing to consider is that Zodiac’s handwriting appears to be written very fast. It’s hard to write quickly while intentionally misspelling words. You end up with a lot of mistakes and scratch offs.

IMO, Zodiac was some typical, under-educated working class schlub that couldn’t spell very well.

Also, this is getting very off topic.

ETA: You should consider posting this at Tom’s site as well. The more input the better, I think.

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=4025&p=65161#p65161

I believe he either wrote it from memory and had misheard some lyrics, or that he tried to write it as the record was playing. The penmanship doesn’t indicate that he was writing particularly fast, which makes the "from memory" idea more appealing. But if he was listening to the record, maybe he went through a few drafts until he thought "good enough!", or maybe he was sitting there moving the needle on the record player in order to re-listen to the tricky bits (like I have been over the past few days!), which could account for some of the weird multi-word omissions if he didn’t put the needle back in quite the right place.

We’ll never know, I guess. For me, the most enticing possibility, however remote, is that we could connect him to a particular physical object.

It’s definitely compelling evidence. Bravo.

One would have to think that he listened to this record constantly. Perhaps obsessively. I have listened to albums again and again, and I am unsure I’d be able to transcribe lyrics that I heard from memory.

I’d love for Tahoe to give her two cents here.

Hey Chaucer–I obviously have some fans here. (sarcasm)

I’m always open to hearing about other possibilities. People have talked about this forever, including Graysmith, and the likes of the Groucho version hadn’t been so openly talked about. There were many, many versions–none of which I (and countless others) had seen, to match so closely.

Somewhere, there were several other similarities that were perfect matches–compared to other things he had said, in other songs, on the Groucho album. For the record, I never thought the Groucho card was from Zodiac, so I had no motivation convince anyone.

I cannot listen right now, but if the Green version matches too, well…shit-howdy! That’s cool.