RE: VMs: VMS not Welsh? oh well....

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Gillogly wrote:
> > Without proper decipherment techinques in place, the VMS is as
> > Welsh as it is Chinese.  Both are equally as valid....
>  > It cannot be directly translated
> > character-for-character, glyph-for-glyph, into any
> language.  I
> > think most of us can at least agree on this point.
>
> I'm with you so far.

One down, 499 points to go....

> > This sounds very arrogant to write, and I don't doubt
> I'll gain a
> > few disparaging remarks because of writing it, but folks, I'm
> > right.  I'm going to say straight out that you need
> to go back and
> > really look at Dr. Strong's papers.  He wasn't
> entirely there - he
> > didn't have our information - but he had the kernel.
>
> OK.  Would it be disparaging to ask whether any of his purported
> plaintext was in this kernel that you categorically assert is
> correct?  While I appreciate the Mordoresque poetry of
> "ped-stans
> skubent, stokked kimbo", I haven't seen any credible explanation
> of why Anthony Askham or anybody else would actually *write*
> something like this, much less encrypt it!

Quite.  One can certainly pick apart an excerpt such as "ped-stans
skubent, stokked kimbo", but it is disengenuous not to quote the
passage in its entirety, to allow others to determine whether or
not these words are appropriate in context:

"At due off male rvte fags.  Stvfe of smellie fook emit life exalt
twfold.  When skvge vf tvnc bag rip, seo oogon kvm sli of se
mosure, issve ped stans, sku bent, stokked kimbo elbo crawknot,
migt vilani turn mite once arovnd.  Ego vigors can preek opus.
Svthi tuch guars actte of hatch."

It would take a very special mind to make something like this up.
Not that the world is not blessed with an abundance of "special"
minds, but just read it through and see if it makes sense:

At due off, the male 'root' fatigues.  (I just don't have
acceptable English for 'stufe of smellie fook', but I don't doubt
everyone understands the gist) - begets a twofold exaltation of
life.  When the water breaks (skvge vf tvnc bag rip), and you see
the baby (oogon) come slyly from the mother (mosure - refer to
archives [maybe Baconian archives?] for this word), issuing feet
first, sku bent, cord knotted around the neck and elbows
(craw-knot), [dual meaning - craw can refer to "throat", or
crawknot can refer to "belly cord" as a literal], the midwife
(vilani, a form of "villian", old for "servant"), might turn the
baby (mite) once around.  Ego vigors - strong kicking, strong
pushing, personal vigorousness? can break the sack.  Soothing/soft
touch gaurantees act of hatch. (opus is used in 78r and 84r to
refer to round objects).

We're not talking here about the few lines picked out by Friedman
and Kahn to demonstrate wanton  absurdity, a select few out of the
many lines published by Dr. Strong when he attempted to make his
case.  All available pages of Dr. Strong's work are now available,
and have been for some time, and to repeat the omissions and
biases of past researchers in the face of available evidence would
be disingenuous to Strong and to ourselves.

Let's not forget some of the rather witty and informative tidbits
that we can read in these files:

"among regeme mixsion childe yov euer obten is rare.  Heer usage
wans seo eye syht.  Too eschuen cotus habit wont ese bak pain or
akes."

Coupling (mixsion) among the elderly rarely results in child
birth.  Usage (ability to bear children) wanes with the eyesight.
Increase of habitual coitus won't ease back pain or akes.)

Or how about:

"Haawe tre aple etten vnlich arums can drave wicks air fram
spleen.  Like sisle he dris gas aut ovari.  Ovaral seede dri
real."

That's pretty much straight out of Pliny, (although the hawthorne
is English) while the passages on childbirth can be sources to a
German book first published in 1516, but not available elsewhere
until at least 1530.  Some passages are almost direct translatable
quotes from this book. (?Rosengarten something?).  Why would
Strong attempt to translate a book he could have read in 16th
century English, "The Woman's Book"?

Let's not forget the contraceptive formula, that was actually
proven in laboratory experiments conducted by McCawley and Strong
to be an effective spermicide:

"I up a bal koten wet with oil spindl, a compounde honei, a pine
recin spagges gains piler ose firm err fuck stirt.  Wanne orgie
ebb so koten bee removd."

When statements and passages such as these are read in their
proper context, any attack based on linguistic grounds simply
crumbles.  I find meaning in the passages, as do others, and while
the English doesn't exactly read like Shakespeare, it does appear
nevertheless to be an attempt at communication.

I wondered at why Anthony Ascham's English would be so different
from his brother Roger, but with an understanding that their
formative years were spent quite separate and in different
environs, this became no problem at all.  Read "Toxophilus" and
compare this to the several known writings of Anthony Ascham,
especially Anthony's "Sacro-Bosco" manuscript in Yale (1526/27).
This language is nothing like Roger's, but has several
similarities to the VMS language as decoded by Strong.  Clearly
different backgrounds for the two siblings, clearly two different
languages and writing styles.

> And this is the problem that I've had with Strong all along:
> the essence of Science is repeatability, and his claiming
> the conclusion without showing his work wasn't compelling.
> And the reward in his tunc-bag wasn't appetizing enough to
> persuade me rummage in its entrails in search of more of
> it without a clue more compelling than "my description of
> the system of decoding used is clear... any expert decoder
> should be a master in his own field."  As an aspiring decoder,
> I wouldn't comment on what he should know about medicine.
> I'll let linguists comment on his grasp of Askham's English.

An understanding of Strong's world might be in order, especially
the 'secrecy' aspect of his work.  Many of Strong's major finds
were transmitted privately, and the source of those discoveries
kept secret throughout his career.  His private life -
cryptography - was personal and secret.  His professional life
yielded many distinguished papers and public achievements, making
him for a good many years a leader in the field of pre-DNA
genetics.  One of his greatest achievements was a strain of mice
used in genetic research, one that mimicked human response to
certain diseases.  The descendants of these mice are still used
today in research laboratories around the world.  There are those
who make discoveries, and those who lay the solid foundations on
which those discoveries are built.  Strong's life covered a time
of too little information in apparently all of his pursuits, but
he had a very solid track record of foundation building, never
swaying from the doctrine of proper scientific research.

His life of cryptography is a mist to most, but his discoveries
are not alien to Baconians.  Strong discovered a cave on a Pacific
isle that bore markings akin to the markings found on Oak Island.
This discovery did not take place on an exotic adventure, but
through vigorous research and his understanding of medieval
cipher.  The location of the cave was revealed to a select group,
and the find physically verified by participants.  (A brief
mention of this is to be found in Strong's letter archive).  Since
then the underwater cave and its markings have been photographed
and even made the subject of a TV episode, but the meaning has not
yet surfaced, the few in-the-know choosing to keep the secret.
Secrecy in 1917 doesn't make the find any less valid in 2003, but
I suppose there are a few modern minds out there that simply can't
grasp that sort of secrecy and devotion to a small group of
like-minded individuals.  There was a time in American history
when this sort of secrecy and devotion was a coveted and admired
human trait.

That secrecy worked against Strong's claim of decipherment is a
very valid argument, but not one that Strong himself took to
heart.  In his two publications he made it very clear that his
only reason for publishing was to entice the owners into allowing
him access to the full manuscript.  This did not happen, so he
dropped the project entirely, rather than let someone else finish
something he started and should rightfully be allowed to finish.
He left behind a testimony of letters that demonstrated this to be
not only his publicly stated intent, but his private desire as
well.  There were no alterior motives in his design, other than to
finish what he started.  He had no intention of publishing a
"conclusion" until he had reached one, rather he published what he
knew in the hopes that he would gain the access that would
eventually lead to the "conclusive" proof we all seek.  Like it or
not, this is simply how he saw the matter.

As to his "expert decoder" remark, I have no doubt he would be a
formidable challenger to anyone alive today in this field, and was
apparently scary enough to Friedman to warrant some backstage
action on Friedman's part against Strong's request for access to
the manuscript. (This could have been as a result of Bittner's
overzealousness as well, however).  Nevertheless, Strong was
apparently taken quite seriously by Friedman, and one cannot claim
Friedman's quoting of only a fragment as a "scientific" or even
"objective" analysis of Strong's supposed decipherment.  This can
only be termed "demeaning" and "dismissive" on the part of
Friedman.  That Kahn, D'Imperio, Brumbaugh, and others chose to
follow this lead is a tragedy to truth and objectivity, but hey...
that's life.  These people wouldn't investigate further based on
Friedman's statements, and others wouldn't investigate further
based on their statements, which weren't investigated in the first
place.  And the cycle of life continues.....

Linguistically, I ask you to go through Strong's decipherment and
come up with a single sentence that cannot be made sense of in
context.  This would be the fair linguistic analysis, and believe
you me, I have researched every single word for root, meaning and
occurrence in known literature.      The hardest one for me to
find was not something like "crawknot", which turned out to be two
words, not one, but "blikus", something I took for Latin at first.
Live and learn, I guess.  Words like "gumi", "gaw", etc., have
their place in the literature of the time, and virtually all of
them can be found to be valid and meaningful.

I was at first somewhat dismissive, based on the testimony of
others I considered my betters.  It's a wonderful life, you live
and you learn, and sometimes the attentive discover that "betters"
is not always better.  But hey... just because I say so don't make
it so.  You'd actually have to investigate it and decide for
yourself.

GC












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