Follow along on the website: http://j.mp/QDTgrammar Pair Forensic Linguistics In Cold Blood Sponsor: http://thirdlove.com/grammar Sponsor: http://SockFancy.com Use the code "grammar" for $10 off. Quick And Dirty Tips Amazon Affiliate Link. Start your shopping here to support the show: http://quickanddirtytips.com/amazon Grammar Girl's Books: http://j.mp/allGGbooks Grammar Pop iPad Game: http://bit.ly/14eeMDb
Follow along on the website: http://j.mp/QDTgrammar
Pair
Forensic Linguistics
In Cold Blood
Sponsor: http://thirdlove.com/grammar
Sponsor: http://SockFancy.com Use the code "grammar" for $10 off.
Quick And Dirty Tips Amazon Affiliate Link. Start your shopping here to support the show: http://quickanddirtytips.com/amazon
Grammar Girl's Books: http://j.mp/allGGbooks
Grammar Pop iPad Game: http://bit.ly/14eeMDb
How Experts Use Writing to Solve Crime
By Bonnie Mills
Today we're taking a look at how investigators use word choice and sentence structure, along with other writing-related characteristics, to solve crimes. You'll learn about graphology, questioned documents, and forensic linguistics.
Graphology
When you hear the term forensic document examiner, you may immediately think of someone who analyzes handwriting. Forensic document examiners do look at handwriting, but that is only one part of their job. Let's start by looking at the differences between a graphologist and a forensic document examiner.
The more common name for graphology is handwriting analysis. A graphologist studies handwriting to try to determine a person’s character or emotional state. Graphologist Andrea McNichol, quoted in Psychology Today a few years ago said, “Just a handful of lines can tip me off to a person's general intelligence, emotional stability, characteristics as leader or follower, their level of honesty, frequency of drug use, and physical activity level.”
Some consider graphology to be a fad or pseudoscience, however. The CIA's online archive of documents from the Center for the Study of Intelligence contains an assessment of graphology, and it states, “Graphology as a means of assessment has been lumped with astrology, phrenology, and other systems for reading character from physical characteristics such as length of fingers or color of hair. Handwriting is, however, the product of a person. There is therefore some reason to expect it might tell something about him.”
Forensic Document Examination
Now back to forensics. A forensic document examiner compares a document from a known source with a questioned document to see if they are written by the same person. According to the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners, Inc., someone in this field analyzes and compares “questioned handwriting, hand printing, typewriting, commercial printing, photocopies, papers, inks, and other documentary evidence with known material in order to establish the authenticity of the contested material as well as the detection of alterations.” For example, an episode of the true-crime show Forensic Files chronicles a case in which an Arizona murderer used an envelope with a manufacturing flaw, and this flaw was so unusual it helped lead to his conviction. Investigators identified a suspect, and when they found some envelopes in his office, a forensic document examiner compared the flawed envelope used by the killer with the envelopes from the office. And the two samples matched!
The idea of comparing documents to see if there has been a forgery, for example, goes back a long way. According to a brief summary of forensic document examination prepared by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, as far back as the third century, jurists were addressing ways to determine forgeries. Fast forward to modern times, when Daniel Ames wrote one of the earliest treatises on forgery in 1900, and to 1910, when the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners had its beginnings.
Forensic Linguistics
On the other hand, forensic linguistics, a specialized area of forensics, is a fairly new science, and it is concerned with what's called an idiolect, “the language or speech pattern of one individual at a particular period of life.” Forensic linguists analyze these patterns to identify who wrote a document—from a ransom note or a letter to a manifesto or a book.
An interesting example of how a killer's words were used against him in court is the case of Brian Hummert. In 2006, he went on trial in Pennsylvania for murdering his wife. Forensic linguist Robert Leonard, formerly with the music group Sha Na Na, testified about the idiosyncratic use of contractions, among other linguistics-related issues, in Hummert's known writing and in certain questioned documents brought out at the trial. According to a news article, Leonard explained how none of these documents contained contractions of positive phrases, such as I'm and Here's instead of I am and Here is. However, negative phrases such as cannot were sometimes contracted, as in can't. Leonard said, “I've never see this skewing of contractions in the bodies of writings I've evaluated.”
An especially famous case in which forensic linguistics helped solve a crime was the case of Ted Kaczynski, better known as The Unabomber. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski mailed bombs to universities and airlines, killing three people. In 1995, he sent out a 35,000-word essay about the problems of modern society. After it was published, David Kaczynski thought he recognized his brother's writing style and contacted the FBI. An example of Kaczynski's idiolect was that he liked to write, “You can't eat your cake and have it, too” instead of “You can't have your cake and eat it, too.”
Criminals beware! Highly trained word nerds can nail you with your syntax, your use of idioms, and even your paper and envelopes.
That segment was written by Bonnie Mills who is the author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier and blogs at http://sentencesleuth.blogspot.com.
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What Does ‘In Cold Blood’ Mean?
by Samantha Enslen
If you’re in cold blood, are you cold? Or cold-hearted?
It’s December. It’s cold outside. But that doesn’t mean you’re walking around in cold blood … unless you’re also ruthless.
What does in cold blood mean?
This phrase describes a cruel deed done with deliberation and without mercy. A murder performed by an emotionless killer, for example.
The phrase arose from the medieval idea that blood is the seat of all emotion. Back in the day, if you got angry or passionate, your blood was thought to heat up. Even boil! As in, “I was so mad, my blood was boiling.”
In the same vein (no pun intended), medieval folk thought that when you calmed down, your blood cooled.
Thus, if you did something in cold blood, you did something unnatural. You did something violent or passionate—but without your blood heating up. That was clearly a sign of your, well, cold-heartedness.
This phrase first showed up in the 1500s and was likely invented by Shakespeare. But perhaps its most famous use came in 1965, in Truman Capote’s nonfiction book In Cold Blood.
In the book, Capote recounts the 1959 murder of a family of four on an isolated farm in Kansas. When interviewed after the crime, the killers seemed to show little emotion or regret about their actions, coolly describing how they shot the family members and left the house with a take of $40.
From what we can tell, they acted in cold blood.
So here’s your tidbit for today: use in cold blood to describe a dirty deed done coolly and without emotion.
That segment was written by Samantha Enslen who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com or @DragonflyEdit.
Sources for the 'In Cold Blood' Segment
Ammer, Christine. In cold blood. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
Ayto, John. Cold, in cold blood. Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Oxford English Dictionary, online edition. Oxford University Press. http://bit.ly/1O5zDP0 (subscription required, accessed December 1, 2015).