HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: watson@sce.carleton.ca (Stephen Watson)
Subject: Re: "Holmes" character a ripoff?
Organization: Home for Indigent Bit-Bashers
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 20:27:51 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.130715.13956@bnlux1.bnl.gov> schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:
>I was reading "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe over
>the weekend, and it rather surprised me.  Mostly because it instilled in
>me the idea that perhaps Doyle plagurized the idea of the Holmes
>character from Poe's character of "Dupin".
>
I've read the "Dupin" stories.
Depends what you mean by "plagiarized".  "Borrowed a good idea" perhaps? :-)
Interestingly, Holmes himself comments disparagingly in the "Dupin" stories,
but I forget where, or the exact words.  Can anyone fill us in?

I also remeber reading that Holmes was based on a real-life Scottish surgeon
(whose name also escapes me.  Gee my memory's working well today!) whose
methods of deduction ACD greatly admired.

>Gary L. Schroeder  		|  
>schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov         |             Boo. 
>Brookhaven National Laboratory  | 


-- 
==Steve Watson: watson@sce.carleton.ca===Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario==
| The above is the output of a 7th-order Markovian analysis of all posts on   |
| this group for the past month.  Not only is it not Carleton's opinion, it's |
| not even *my* opinion: it's really just a mish-mash of all YOUR opinions!   |
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Redmond)
Subject: Re: "Holmes" character a ripoff? 
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 13:20:05 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.130715.13956@bnlux1.bnl.gov> schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder) writes:
>I was reading "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe over
>the weekend, and it rather surprised me.  Mostly because it instilled in
>me the idea that perhaps Doyle plagurized the idea of the Holmes
>character from Poe's character of "Dupin".

>This story followed the Holmes motif so closely, I was forced to wonder
>whether Doyle had patterned his stories after it (as "Morgue" predates
>the first Holmes story by a few decades).  Has anyone else read this
>story and found the similarities interesting?  Have any famous
>Sherlockian scholars discussed it?

Yes, frequently and at length.  Arthur Conan Doyle himself frequently
acknowledged his debt to Poe.  See, for example, his autobiography,
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES, which major libraries will have although it
has been out of print for quite some time.  Historians of the genre
agree that Poe pioneered the "detective" with Dupin, but that Doyle
added the essential elements of realism (Poe's detective stories, like
the rest of his work, are macabre and improbable) and procedure --
the emphasis in the story is on the clues and the reasoning.

By the way, that's Edgar Allan Poe, spelt ALLAN.

CAR
From: srh3@Ra.MsState.Edu (Steven R. Hollis)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
Subject: Re: "Holmes" character a ripoff?
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:39:24 GMT
Organization: Mississippi State University


     This is probably common knowledge, but I will post it anyway.  Holmes's
character was based on a proffesor Doyle had in college.  A story is told
of how the class brought a man in off the street and the prof told a lot
about him just by looking and observing.  This is off the top of my head,
so my details may be sketchy.  Anyone else heard this??

--
===============================================================================
Steve Hollis--Your friendly neighborhood zoology major
srh3@ra.msstate.edu
===============================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: egorr@hebb.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr)
Subject: Re: Re.Faulty Deduction
Organization: University of Oregon Network Services
Distribution: alt.fan.holmes
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 92 16:12:05 GMT

In article <1992Sep21.194955.27808@bnlux1.bnl.gov>, schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov
(gary l. schroeder) writes:
> 
> In article <VSUMMERS.92Sep21082433@polaris.cv.nrao.edu> vsummers@polaris.cv.nrao.edu (Vince Summers) writes:
> 
> >     One faulty deduction of Holmes' is the brain-attic that holds only
> >so much furtniture (bits of knowledge).  The brain, of course, can hold
> >much more knowledge than people fill it with.
> 
> 
> The bit about the "brain-attic" isn't a deduction.  A faulty deduction
> would be an erroneous conlusion that contradicted available information,
> or a conclusion that didn't logically follow from the available facts.

What ever.  In any case, the origional purpose of the message was to find
things that Holmes believed to be true, but that we later know not to be.

Although, the brain-attic still might be true to some degree, just because
a
human brain has never been filled, doesn't mean that it will never be. 
Holmes just underestimated the amount of storage space
available.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: dzik@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz)
Subject: Re: Was Watson a cannibal
Keywords: worse and worse
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 16:24:55 GMT

In article <80344@ut-emx.uucp> oo7@ut-emx.uucp (Derek Wills) writes:
>Not only was Watson homosexual if you believe recent postings (e.g.
>mine) but he practised cannibalism.  Near the start of Blue Peter
>(nudge, nudge - no, it's the name of a sea captain) he says "Mrs
>Hudson's kidneys are always delicious".  Well, I mean, what what?

Weren't there some organs missing from some of the Jack the Ripper
victims?  Hmm, this is getting worse the more I look at it...

Joe Dzikiewicz

Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: johnf@apollo.hp.com (John Francis)
Subject: Re: As Promised: a Sherlockian paper
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:50:28 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Oct4.191034.4999@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> clavazzi@nyx.cs.du.edu (Charles Lavazzi) writes:
>In article <BvLEC0.3xx@agora.rain.com> trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks) writes:
>>
>>
>>All in all, this is an intersting paper, but it suffers badly from a lack of
>>knowledge of the conditions in English cities in Sherlock's time.
>>
>>Almost all heating in London and other such metropolises was by burning coal,
>>and the so-called London Fog was so full of sulpher fumes from those who could
>>not afford the best coal that it was quite common for an air inversion to
>>create what was called a "killer fog" and a fairly large number of invalids
>>and old ladies to die from it, even if they never left their homes! The English
>>have done a good deal to clean up London in the last couple of generations,
>>and I don't think we apreciate just how bad conditions really were before
>>electricity and heat from steam boilers was common. I have walked in the
>>evenings in rural Scotland and Ireland, and even in small towns the stench of
>>coal or (even worse) peat burning on the hearth takes quite a bit of getting
>>used to, and yet almost no-one burns wood. (Too expensive unless you own your
>>own woodlot...most of the area was logged off centuries ago.)
>>
>	If I'm interpreting this correctly, your point is that air quality in
>Holmes-era Britain was uniformly lousy, and that the country would have been
>no better than the city.  True as this may be, there's no getting around the
>fact that the Canon is filled with passages indicating as association of 
>"country air" and health.  We're talking about perceptions here, not objective
>reality. >:-)>

No  -  the point being made above is that the air quality in London during the
Holmes era was so bad that almost anything would have been an improvement.
The comment about small towns in Scotland and Ireland indicates that a modern
nose regards remote rural conditions (mostly unchanged since Holmes' time) as
almost unacceptable.  Bad as those conditions may be, however, the conditions
in the Victorian city were an order of magnitude worse.
I'm (just) old enough to remember really bad fogs in London in the early 50s -
so bad that you could only see a few feet in front of you, and foul-smelling
enough to make you cough if you breathed deeply. And this was long after gas
and/or electric heat became commonplace!
London was eventually (1955?) declared a `smokeless zone' - this meant that
you were not permitted to burn `soft' coal - the only type of coal permitted
was `hard' coal, also known as `anthracite'. This eliminated the smog problem.
-- 
John Francis                                johnf@apollo.hp.com
Seen passing on the net:  Spotted Owl - the *other* white meat!
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder)
Subject: "Holmes" character a ripoff? 
Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 13:07:15 GMT

I was reading "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe over
the weekend, and it rather surprised me.  Mostly because it instilled in
me the idea that perhaps Doyle plagurized the idea of the Holmes
character from Poe's character of "Dupin".

For those of you not familiar with the short story, "Morgue" is set in
the first half of the 19th century in Paris.  The story begins with the
storyteller's description of the methods of deduction, and then a
description of his friend Dupin's amazing power of deduction (after a 15
min. lull in a conversation between the two, Dupin is able to deduce
what his friend is thinking merely by constructing a chain of thought
according to things that they have passed while walking down the
street).

Eventually, after Dupin's amazing powers are fully demonstrated, a
brutal set of murders is perpetrated upon two women.  They visit the
murder scene, looking for clues and then use newspapers to search for
additional information (a method commonly seen in Holmes stories).  In
so doing this, Dupin is able to deduce the entire sequence of events
leading to the murder.  In order to capture the man responsable, he
places an ad in the paper enticing him to his apartment (another common
Holmes tactic), finally capturing him at which point the man gladly
exposes all the missing details of the murder.

This story followed the Holmes motif so closely, I was forced to wonder
whether Doyle had patterned his stories after it (as "Morgue" predates
the first Holmes story by a few decades).  Has anyone else read this
story and found the similarities interesting?  Have any famous
Sherlockian scholars discussed it?


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary L. Schroeder  		|  
schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov         |             Boo. 
Brookhaven National Laboratory  | 
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: sane@cs.uiuc.edu (Aamod Sane)
Subject: Re: As Promised: a Sherlockian paper
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 03:20:46 GMT

trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks) writes:

>Automobile smog is nothing by comparison. In fact the word smog was coined by
>Tolkien, and he was thinking of the sulpherous coal smoke when he did, not
>autos, which were considerably fewer then.

OED does not substantiate this claim. The first use is 1905, which
I believe predates tolkien. He did, however, use the name "Smaug"
for the dragon in Hobbit, and that might be a derivation from smog.

Aamod


QOTD:

bc      The bc option controls bug compatibility mode in the server, if 
	possible; a preceding dash(-) disables the mode, otherwise the 
	mode is enabled.  ...
	Bug compatibility mode explicitly reintroduces certain bugs into 
	the X server... The server must support the MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD
	protocol extension in order for this option to work.
-- 
sane@cs.uiuc.edu
         ==         / \  
-----    ==    *    \_/     -|||- 
         ==     
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks)
Subject: Re: "Holmes" character a ripoff? 
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 09:03:55 GMT



Although Doyle undoubtedly took some inspiration from both Poe and his mentor
Dr. Bell, I don't think this is a "ripoff". Most literary characters are
taken from real life and other fictional inspirations.

Suze

Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks)
Subject: Re: As Promised: a Sherlockian paper
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 10:26:21 GMT



All in all, this is an intersting paper, but it suffers badly from a lack of
knowledge of the conditions in English cities in Sherlock's time.

Almost all heating in London and other such metropolises was by burning coal,
and the so-called London Fog was so full of sulpher fumes from those who could
not afford the best coal that it was quite common for an air inversion to
create what was called a "killer fog" and a fairly large number of invalids
and old ladies to die from it, even if they never left their homes! The English
have done a good deal to clean up London in the last couple of generations,
and I don't think we apreciate just how bad conditions really were before
electricity and heat from steam boilers was common. I have walked in the
evenings in rural Scotland and Ireland, and even in small towns the stench of
coal or (even worse) peat burning on the hearth takes quite a bit of getting
used to, and yet almost no-one burns wood. (Too expensive unless you own your
own woodlot...most of the area was logged off centuries ago.)

If you go to Glasgow, you can see the evidence if you visually compare the
areas that have been restored by sanblasting to clean the stone walls with the
parts of the city they haven't been able to do yet. All the buildins have this
very somber gray color...and then you turn a corner and you realize that they
are really made of rather pretty yellow and pink sandstone.... Imagine what
that did to all those human lungs over the years.

Automobile smog is nothing by comparison. In fact the word smog was coined by
Tolkien, and he was thinking of the sulpherous coal smoke when he did, not
autos, which were considerably fewer then.

Suze

trifid@agora.rain.com

Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: rao@moose.cccs.umn.edu (Rao V. Akella)
Subject: Re: Faulty deduction...
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Reply-To: rao@moose.cccs.umn.edu
Organization: Colon Cancer Control Study, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
X-Lunar-Date: 3 days, 1 hr, 42 mins until the first quarter of the moon (U.T.)
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:41:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep19.214206.5504@nntp.uoregon.edu>, eric_gorr@coglab_psych.uoregon.edu (eric gorr) writes:
> I just receinly read a short story (of which I am blankin on the name) in
> which holmes judged a man to be highly intelligent because he had a large
> hat size.  Today, we know this to be false.
>  
> Are there any other similiar instances?  I am just curious...

P.G.Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster also keeps making constant references to the
large hat-size of his gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves.  He also keeps urging
Jeeves to consume large quantities of sardines, so there must have been a
common belief at that time that big heads meant big brains meant greater
intelligence, and that sardines had a direct correlation to intelligence.

By "...at that time...", I mean:
	Sir A.C.Doyle: 1859-1930
	P.G.Wodehouse: 1881-1975

-- Rao Akella    <rao@moose.cccs.umn.edu, rao%moose@umnacvx.bitnet>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer)
Subject: Movie: "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes"
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 04:32:34 GMT

KQED aired this firm this evening. I wonder if anyone else
shares my opinion of this film.

I found this film to be disgusting work with rude charicatures
of the original characters of Sir Conan-Doyle. Watson was
a loud, arrogant buffoon, Mycroft an argumentative and energetic
sort of spymaster or something and worse yet is the outright silly
thought that the Diogenes club could be some sort of private branch
of the Foreign office hanging out in Loch Ness. Oh, it is just too much.
The out-and-out worst Holmes move I've ever seen.

Perhaps I simply expect too much after seeing Jeremey Brett.

It was rather nice to see an early appearance of "Captain Peacock"
from "Are You Being Served", though. I believe he was the man at the
front desk of the Diogenes club. I may be wrong, though.

It was still a thoroughly rotten flick.

-- 
Nick Sayer <mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us> | "Help! I'm a bug"
N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM     | "<poof> You're a feature"
37 19 49 N / 121 57 36 W             | 
+1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'   |       -- The USENET Oracle
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Redmond)
Subject: Re: As Promised: a Sherlockian paper
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 13:24:13 GMT

In article <Bvnqs4.FxG@apollo.hp.com> johnf@apollo.hp.com (John Francis) writes:
(talking about polluted city air in the Victorian period):

>No  -  the point being made above is that the air quality in London during the
>Holmes era was so bad that almost anything would have been an improvement.
>The comment about small towns in Scotland and Ireland indicates that a modern
>nose regards remote rural conditions (mostly unchanged since Holmes' time) as
>almost unacceptable.  Bad as those conditions may be, however, the conditions
>in the Victorian city were an order of magnitude worse.
>I'm (just) old enough to remember really bad fogs in London in the early 50s -
>so bad that you could only see a few feet in front of you, and foul-smelling
>enough to make you cough if you breathed deeply. And this was long after gas
>and/or electric heat became commonplace!
>London was eventually (1955?) declared a `smokeless zone' - this meant that
>you were not permitted to burn `soft' coal - the only type of coal permitted
>was `hard' coal, also known as `anthracite'. This eliminated the smog problem.

The last great fog in London occurred in 1952, and is thought to have
killed some four thousand people.  We romanticize those Victorian fogs --
Vincent Starrett's beloved sonnet "221B" includes the line

   the ghostly gas-lamps fail at twenty feet

-- without realizing just how dreadful they were if you had to live in
them.  "Pea-souper" is the traditional word, and describes not only the
consistency of the fog but its greenish-yellow colour.

CAR
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
From: clavazzi@nyx.cs.du.edu (Charles Lavazzi)
Subject: Re: As Promised: a Sherlockian paper
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 18:46:02 GMT

In article <yanzh4g@rpi.edu> weltyc@porsche.cs.rpi.edu (Chris Welty) writes:
>
>OK, I'll bite.
>
>I recall, and I suppose I shall have to cite the reference eventually,
>Holmes remarking to Watson during a train ride through the country
>something to this effect:
>
>"To you it may seem like a quiet, peaceful countryside.  But to me, I
>must see all the opportunities a criminal has in the country."
>
	I recognize the quote but can't recall the source either, at the
moment.  But the original paper commented more on the image of the rural
environment (especially the "country air") than the residents thereof. I don't
see the quote cited above as necessarily being in conflict.

>Additionally, any quote regarding that someone's complexion gives away
>the fact that they live in the country may not be a compliment.  In
>those times pale skin was considered attractive, and women of the
>aristocracy spent little time outdoors, and when they were it was with
>a large hat or an umbrella to protect their skin from the sun.
>
	No argument here.  But again, we're talking about health and hardiness
rather than social desirability.
>Stir stir stir.
	It may also be worth pointing out that the original paper was
written with tongue somewhat in cheek.  Judging from some of the other
responses, I may not have made that clear enough.  >:-)>
>
>--
>
>Christopher Welty                   Asst. Director, RPI CS Labs, Troy, NY 12180
>weltyc@cs.rpi.edu                  "Porsche:  Fahren in seiner schoensten Form"

Chuck

Newsgroups: alt.fan.enya
From: eckert@geordi.tamu.edu (Stephen Eckert)
Subject: Re: Movie with Book of Days?
Reply-To: eckert@geordi.tamu.edu (Stephen Eckert)
Organization: Department of Statistics, TAMU
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 02:50:48 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.184033.14116@microsoft.com>, lylec@microsoft.com (Lyle Corbin) writes:
> I'm trying to remember what movie the english version of Book of Days came
> out with, but I can't.  Can someone help me out here?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Lyle Corbin      lylec@microsoft.com

It was the terribly boring film,
"Far and Away",
starring Tom Cruise.

Stephen Eckert
Organization: Senior, Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.fan.enya
Date: Sun,  4 Oct 1992 09:57:38 -0400 
From: Jason Lee Smith <js06+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: I hope this isn't a FAQ

The title just about says it all, I'm a new reader and don't know which
questions have been asked ad nauseum.

There's an Irish group of Pop/Folk singers called "Clannad." They are
REALLY great and I highly reccomend them to any Enya enthusiasts.
Anyhow, most of the are siblings, and I was informed that Enya was
related to them. Is this true?

		Jason


A cap of good acid costs five dollars and for that you can hear the
Universal Symphony with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums.
Hunter S. Thompson

Newsgroups: alt.fan.enya
From: lylec@microsoft.com (Lyle Corbin)
Subject: Movie with Book of Days?
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:40:33 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

I'm trying to remember what movie the english version of Book of Days came
out with, but I can't.  Can someone help me out here?

Thanks,

Lyle Corbin      lylec@microsoft.com
Newsgroups: alt.fan.enya
From: eckert@geordi.tamu.edu (Stephen Eckert)
Subject: Re: Movie with Book of Days?
Reply-To: eckert@geordi.tamu.edu (Stephen Eckert)
Organization: Department of Statistics, TAMU
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 02:54:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.184033.14116@microsoft.com>, lylec@microsoft.com (Lyle Corbin) writes:
> I'm trying to remember what movie the english version of Book of Days came
> out with, but I can't.  Can someone help me out here?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Lyle Corbin      lylec@microsoft.com
I think it was the brain-dead movie "Far and Away," starring Tom Cruise.

In fact, the words have been changed in the song so that she
actually sings "Far and Away" in the English version.

Stephen
Newsgroups: alt.fan.enya
From: kukhan@nyx.cs.du.edu (Karim Khan)
Subject: Number of Albums
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix (sponsored by U. of Denver Math/CS dept.)
Disclaimer1: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of
Disclaimer2: Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
Disclaimer3: control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 22:56:35 GMT

     How many albums has Enya released?  I like her music, sounds kind of
Gaelic or Celtic or something.
Organization: Sophomore, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.fan.enya
Date: Mon,  5 Oct 1992 16:53:15 -0400 
From: Divya Bhansali <db72+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: I hope this isn't a FAQ

If my memory is correct, the co-leader of the Clannad is Enya's sister. 
I remember reading something about it in a Rolling Stone issue from June
or so...
				Div
Newsgroups: alt.fan.shostakovich
Subject: Band vs. D.S.
From: bstjohn@vax1.umkc.edu
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 07:46:27 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City

I love the idea of a marching band doing Festive Overture! *Laugh* A wind
version of the 10th exists, too. What an idea....
Newsgroups: alt.fan.shostakovich
Subject: previn
From: bstjohn@vax1.umkc.edu
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 06:00:46 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City

I just bought a shostakovich quasi-documentary done by Previn. It was on sale
at Blockbuster for $5! Can you believe it !!! What a hoot. 

Xref: sparky alt.fan.shostakovich:295 rec.music.classical:13801