Talk:From Hell letter

message: From what I've read of the subject, this letter was also believed to be authentic due to the spelling of "knif", which suggested the word was intentionally misspelled to imply a less literate writer. It was thought that if they had actually been less educated, they would not have known to include the silent 'k'. (Strangely, I think I got this information from this very article, though it's possible someone has removed it since due to some lack of citation? Ear regardless, as Van Gogh said, I was wondering if anyone else had heard of this theory or it's relevance to the letter's infamy. 24.3.14.157 (talk) 17:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Sor" probably is a misspelling of "sir". Regardless the letter definitely says "sor" not "sur". Compare the shape of the letters to the handwriting in the rest of the letter. He wrote his "u"s completely differently. Mloren (talk) 10:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sor is the most common way that is listed. Some reliable authorities say that it is actually just Sir, based upon the R in prasarved and elswhere showing the the lowercase R sometimes starts with an upstroke like that. DreamGuy (talk) 16:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd agree that it should be "Sor" based on the fact that the "o" looks more like the other examples of that letter, and nothing like the examples of "u". I think, though, that it is a case of the the author of the letter writing phonetically - either genuinely or (more likely) in imitation - as per "prasarved" and "Mishter". There is an inherent contradiction between the fairly competent "copperplate" handwriting and the standard of English employed. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Knif

message: More importantly, I've tried to find a reference that places the origin of this phrase to this specific letter, but have yet to find a creditable one.  Is there an article that contains the phrases origin I overlooked?  "From Hell" also seems to have originated from this letter, but isn't credited as such in any material I've come across.24.99.161.15 (talk) 14:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "Catch me if you can" as a phrase did not originate with this letter. The term from hell didn't either. DreamGuy (talk) 23:24, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "Catch me when you can" in popular culture

message: This is well documented in many, many books. Reports that he said the kidney was female, ginny and all that were based upon claims that some other people who merely said he said those things and not based upon a direct interview. When reporters talked to Openshaw himself, he explicitly denied making those claims. In fact some of the things he allegedly said were not even things that the scientific tests available at the time could have determined. We should not be repeating bad information that has been debunked for years. Worse than that, the person who kept adding it back in doesn't seem to have even read the edit comments explaining the situation to him, as he claimed that we weren't endorsing the claims, just saying they happened, which is the whole point, they DIDN'T actually happen in the first place. DreamGuy (talk) 14:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Openshaw did not say what some bad press reports claimed he did 

message: I'm sure I am not the only one who noticed the differences between this letter and the prior "Ripper letters," namely the odd spelling of words in the From Hell letter. Are these actual spelling mistakes within the letter, or are they simply archaic ways of spelling these words? If they are actual errors, couldn't this be some sort of flag about the letters? The "Dear Boss" letter seems to give off the air of the writer being an intellectual.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.64.95.151 (talk) 23:34, 4 August 2006
:Considering the letter was from the late 19th century, I wouldn't consider that time period "archaic." Any spelling mistakes are just that. --clpo13(talk) 08:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lack of education would have been the primary reason for such spelling at the time.  Minus some, rather small, regional and national variations, English had been fairly standardized by that time.  It was only 125 years ago after all, not really that long a time. 63.224.156.49 (talk) 23:52, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misspellings  

message: The article claims that the "h" in "while" is silent.  But, for an Irish person, it would not be silent.  See Phonological history of wh.  Grover cleveland (talk) 13:46, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: "Silent" h

message: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jack-the-ripper-letter-could-raise-cash-to-help-the-met-8738945.html Published July 31st. Does this deserve mention in the article? Also, is the original letter still missing? A comment in the Talk section of the Saucy Jacky postcard says the From Hell letter was recovered but it doesn't reference anything. --RThompson82 (talk) 21:42, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[From Hell letter]] to go on display? 

message: Is there a reason "tother" is called out for explanation but not the other non-standard words?--Khajidha (talk) 21:52, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tother 

message: Is it only me who thinks that only a native of Poland will actually come to an idea of writing "Sir" with an "O"? --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 14:27, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  O.