Bagley Slanders B. Young = Lots of Attention / Bagley's Slander Proven Bogus and Dishonest = No Attention

[Woody]

Ignore this, trying to figure out how to get the board software to do what I want

[Woody]

The word in the photograph is not clear. I frankly do not recognize the word by itself. On first impression it looks like "franp" to me, but of course this doesn't make any sense, not in this context or any other. It can be interpreted as many different things.

To provide some content or value instead of dwelling on extended repetitions of 'he said/she said', I will attempt to analyze it.

First step: I read the whole text presented to us. I'm an American. Altho a hundred years after Dimick, his handwriting is very easy for me to read, except for certain words indicated as "???". My transcription:

1 | now they have come

2 | to fight us & you

3 | for when they kill

4 | us then they will

5 | kill you. they sayed

6 | ??? was afraid to

7 | fight the Americans

8 | & ?? ????? raise ??????

9 | & ??? might fight

The controversy is about the last word on line 8: is it grain, allies, or what? Those two possibilities have the following letters: G,R,A,I,N,L,E,S. These would be lower case but I'll use upper case to clarify things a bit. All these letters appear several times in the surrounding text. I will refer to those by line number/word number/letter number. For example, the E in the word "have" would be 1/3/4.

The first letter of the word in question looks to me like an F, but there are too many strokes. They go here, there, all directions. The presumption would be we have two letters close together. They might be FR, YR, GI, something like that.

We should note that this person's handwriting does not flow smoothly, he makes some letters "by the book" but makes others ad hoc, for instance the articulated I in Americans and the K in the 2nd "kill" (5/1/1). We cannot certainly identify any letter on the basis that it looks like others or does not.

If the 2nd letter in this 8/5/1 tangle be looked upon as an R, there are four other R's in this sample to compare against. They do not closely match each other. This 2nd letter matches the R at 6/3/3 and somewhat matches 8/4/1. It does not remotely resemble any of the example I's - except 5/1/2. It might be a Z, made like Zorro makes 'em. We don't have any Z's in this sample. Usually, in America, kids were taught to make a cursive Z with a descender like a Y.

If this be an R, it would mean that the small loop above and to the left of this 2nd letter is part of the R and not part of the first letter.

This tangle does not resemble any of the 7 example A's except at first glance 5/4/2 which is badly formed (the downstroke at its right is part of the following Y; that realization destroys the resemblance.)

Back to the first letter then, realizing that the small loop may be part of the following letter R. The first letter then closely resembles the other four examples of G's. It also might be a Y, an F, or even a J somehow. There are no other J's to compare with. There are 5 F's and this resembles them somewhat, but neither J nor F would explain the raised "arm" off to the left. There are several Y's in the sample but only one at the beginning of a word (5/2/1) and it has a different raised arm to the left, even tho it also is starting from a low position from the previous letter.

If the small loop is not part of a following R, I don't know what the first letter is. It simply does not compute at all unless it's a Y with a degree sign after it. (I sincerely doubt that.)

I evaluate the 1st letter therefore as a G, with probability 40%; a Y (p=35%); an F (10%); a J (5%); or there is the remote possibility that it's just some random curlicues not a letter, call that possibility 5%.

And I evaluate the 2nd letter as an R, with p=70%; an I, 15%, a Z, 10%, and just possibly an A, 2%.

I arrive at these probabilities subjectively, a sort of balance of all factors, but looking at the letter itself, not the context of it or the implications. They are not precise measurements but rough estimates; the principal value would be if one was 80% and another was 0.001%, this would be a clear resolution.

The third letter of the word in question looks like an A. It could be a double L. All 3 of our sample L's are double, making our task slightly easier. They are all much larger than this, and they all open the upward "bowl" much wider. Comparing this third letter to the 7 sample A's, it looks exactly like almost all of them.

I evaluate this 3rd letter as an A with p=80% and possibly a double L (15%).

The fourth letter looks like a dotted I. It also looks like an N. It could be either of these, comparing with the numerous examples nearby. It appears that if this is an I, the writer has departed from the usual I shape, in preparation for starting the following letter at a high position and marking downward, a little different from other I's that are followed by high starts - but don't have the same kind of downward stroke after that. Also, this is close to the end of the line, the writer is running out of room. The mark above it is exactly like the dot of 7/3/5, but different from other point I-dots in the sample. It might be an accent, an incidental pencil mark, ink splatter, squished bug, or some such. There are 2 other such possible marks on the sample.

I evaluate the 4th letter as an I, with p=45%, or an N, with p=35%, or something else.

If the fourth letter is an I, then the next letter might be an N, or something else, like maybe an S. It does not look like any of the other 12 E's.

If the fourth letter is an N, then the last little squiggle might be a very small P. We don't have an example of a P here. It could be a T, or a "period" badly goofed, or who knows what else.

To evaluate probabilities for these possible last letters in their various possible combinations would be complicated, other than to note that the possibility of an E anywhere in this area is very close to zero.

With the above analysis of individual marks I tally the possibilities then as follows: I form columns for each letter position, and down this column I write the various possible letters, with their probabilities, sorted best down to weakest. At the bottom of each column I place a "?" representing all other possible letters, with the remaining probability. Each column totals to 1.0; this because I've assumed the writer didn't simply goof entirely, or have a muscle twitch or something and write "franp" or something like that. Toward the right the columns get a bit disorganized due to the multiplying possibilities. I've put in p=0.1% for the E there.

| 1: _ _ _ | 2: _ _ _| 3: _ _ _| 4: _ _ | 5: _ _|

| G 40% _ _| R 70% _ | A 80% _ | I 45% _| N _ _ |

| Y 35% _ _| I 15% _ | LL 15% _| N 35% _| S _ _ |

| F 10% _ _| Z 10% _ | ? 5% _ _| ? 20% _| P _ _ |

| J 5% _ _ | A 2% _ _| _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _| T _ _ |

| null 5% _| ? 3% _ _| _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _|"." _ _|

| ? 5% _ _ | _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _| E 0.1%|

| _ _ _ _ _| _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _ | _ _ _ _| ? _ _ |

To get this table to display aright, I've put this text in Courier font and inserted underscores; ignore those. The board software handles spaces and tabs in nonlinear ways.

If one accepts the above analysis, the game then becomes: pick a letter from each column, try to form a word.

We need to recognize that Dimick didn't write this for publication - he wrote it to read himself. So he may have written a private abbreviation here, or an Indian word, or a misspelled English word, or almost anything. There are about 1900 different possibilities just from the above table, not spelling out all possibilities indicated by question marks.

I have written code to list out all of them and scanned down thru the list.

The main word that fits here is grain. The probability of that, as calculated above (which is not very rigorous) including possible misspellings such as grane, grann, and grans, totals 14%, which is the highest of anything I could find.

This fairly small number reflects the simple fact that almost anything's possible; if we guess there are five letters, and each might be anything at all, the the probability for any specific word would be 1 in 26^5, a very small probability; 14% then is pretty large compared to any other combination of letters.

We actually do something like this in our heads when we read handwriting. (We should respect pharmacists more.)

The next most likely word is grapes (graip, gra?e) 1%. It doesn't seem likely from context tho, ie. the Indians didn't raise grapes.

France - spelled as fran., frans, or frann - we shouldn't assume too much - which has a probability of 0.5%; this is getting down into the difficult region, and makes little sense.

Rain? (ran., rans, rann) 0.4 percent. Maybe the Indians went home to do the rain dance?

Could Dimick have been trying to write "financing"? (fiann, fian., fians, etc.) 0.1% The Indians went home to raise financing for the war?

Could he have been trying to write something about filling in? 0.1 percent all possible spellings.

How about "giants" ? p=0.07 percent and makes no sense whatsoever.

Horses? Women? (fillis, fill?s, filli., etc.) 0.07 percent.

Some other word, such as grant or great (grait) or you-all (yall?) - these figure out as anywhere from 1% down to 0.01 but I can't imagine a meaning for grant or great here in context at all, or any of the other possibilities.

My point being that delving way down into the very slimmest of possibilities doesn't fish up any other good words.

Allies comes in way much lower, about 0.0003 percent. And it has to be spelled "alli?", "all??" where the ? represents some unknown letter that didn't look much like what was intended. I don't see any real reason to believe these probability figures too much, anything is possible; but what these numbers are saying is that the allies interpretation requires a lot of straining to see. In other words, Dimick didn't really intend to write what it looks like he wrote, but something else that does not look like what he wrote.

The bottom line, by the above analysis, is that the word is unknown. The best specific guess is "grain". After that, one might try words that make sense in context, such as "grass", or "allies" or "Cain" or "heaven&earth" or anything else that could be raised, and assume that the writer basically sneezed at this point and made squiggles that didn't look like what he was trying for, whatever it was.

In my opinion, but guided by the above investigations, NO certainty can be yielded to any interpretation of the word at the right end of line 8.

Wood

[alter idem]

Is there any indication that the cattle were in the corral of wagons with the armed Emigrants?

If the objective were the cattle there would have been no reason to continue once the cattle were rustled from them.

The cattle were not in the corral--there were a lot of cattle. They were spread out all over and during the time that the emigrants were holed up behind their wagons, some of the cattle were killed or taken. After the massacre, the Mormons involved in the massacre took the cattle.

Taking the cattle was definitely one reason the emigrants were attacked, but the reason the men gave for killing all the people was that they had seen 'white men' and knew that the Mormons were involved. They reasoned that if they let them go on to Calif. they would tell the authorities and they would come murder the Mormons and their families. They rationalized that they were killing the people in order to protect themselves and their loved ones.

[Scott Lloyd]

It would seem that Hiram Page (aka Trevor) is of the opinion he was ill-used in this thread.

Over at Mormon Discussions, where adverse commentary about threads on this board is the order of the day, Mr. Scratch, that paragon of civility, remarked that Trevor had been treated "despicably" in this discussion by Pahoran, Wiki Wonka and me. Trevor replied that "despicably" perhaps was overstating things a bit, but he did allow that he was not dealt with in a manner "consistent with Christian values."

So, curious, I made a cursory review of the thread. I noted what I already knew: that Hiram Page/Trevor was disagreed with vigorously over the matter of Bagley's credibility and professionalism. But I searched in vain for an instance of the sort of ill treatment asserted on the other board. Even the feared and detested Pahoran, from what I could see in my review of the thread, did not address Trevor, but rather, MysteryMan.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Can anyone point out an instance of un-Christianlike abuse toward Trevor here by the three of us named or by anyone else?

[LifeOnaPlate]

I forget if it was this thread, but my initial tone with Trevor (whom I didn't know was Hyrum Page) was not as polite as it should have been. At the same time, I don't think I was treating him "despicably."

Yep it was this thread.

[Scott Lloyd]

I forget if it was this thread, but my initial tone with Trevor (whom I didn't know was Hyrum Page) was not as polite as it should have been. At the same time, I don't think I was treating him "despicably."

Yep it was this thread.

You mean when you agreed with him that there was no need to call Bagley a "hack"? Or was it when you asked him for examples to substantiate that Turley, Walker and Leonard had left out pertinent material from their book?

[LifeOnaPlate]

You mean when you agreed with him that there was no need to call Bagley a "hack"? Or was it when you asked him for examples to substantiate that Turley, Walker and Leonard had left out pertinent material from their book?

haha, yeah, by and large my points were solid, I believe. But I got caught up in his taking umbrage at something that wasn't directed to him, he accused me of putting words in his mouth, I asserted to the contrary, and it wasn't my best moment. So I stand by all my points, I only wish I hadn't got sidetracked, and had used a nicer tone. But I am quite diabolical, after all.

[Scott Lloyd]

haha, yeah, by and large my points were solid, I believe. But I got caught up in his taking umbrage at something that wasn't directed to him, he accused me of putting words in his mouth, I asserted to the contrary, and it wasn't my best moment. So I stand by all my points, I only wish I hadn't got sidetracked, and had used a nicer tone. But I am quite diabolical, after all.

Apparently your behavior wasn't even bad enough to show up on Scratch's radar, since you weren't among the three of us he singled out as offenders.(And, in fairness to Trevor, he might not have been responding directly to Scratch's having singled us out.)

By the way, you may or may not know that you and your take on reformed Egyptian are the subject of a thread going on over there right now.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Apparently your behavior wasn't even bad enough to show up on Scratch's radar, since you weren't among the three of us he singled out as offenders.(And, in fairness to Trevor, he might not have been responding directly to Scratch's having singled us out.)

By the way, you may or may not know that you and your take on reformed Egyptian are the subject of a thread going on over there right now.

I saw them transforming my sloppiness on a post here into an instance of outrageous and typical plagiarism. They missed the reference I actually had managed to provide, though, and the reference I missed was subsequently added. The thread itself managed not to actually confront the points raised in my post. I browse some of the subjects there once in a while, but have retired from posting publicly there.

[Scott Lloyd]

I saw them transforming my sloppiness on a post here into an instance of outrageous and typical plagiarism. They missed the reference I actually had managed to provide, though, and the reference I missed was subsequently added. The thread itself managed not to actually confront the points raised in my post.

I kind of surmised there was some unwarranted crowing and cackling going on over there.

[Scott Lloyd]

Apparently your behavior wasn't even bad enough to show up on Scratch's radar, since you weren't among the three of us he singled out as offenders.(And, in fairness to Trevor, he might not have been responding directly to Scratch's having singled us out.)

Oops, LOAP, I looked again and saw that Scratch actually said "WonkaOnaPlate," not Wiki Wonka. So, alas, it would seem he does include you in our "despicable" triad.

I also noted there that Trevor compares his experience on this thread to being "jumped by a gang." Seems a bit overwrought, but again, maybe I missed something.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Oops, LOAP, I looked again and saw that Scratch actually said "WonkaOnaPlate," not Wiki Wonka. So, alas, it would seem he does include you in our "despicable" triad.

I also noted there that Trevor compares his experience on this thread to being "jumped by a gang." Seems a bit overwrought, but again, maybe I missed something.

Oh man, my secret identity of Wiki Wonka has been outed.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I also noted there that Trevor compares his experience on this thread to being "jumped by a gang." Seems a bit overwrought, but again, maybe I missed something.

Maybe he's used to the more friendly atmosphere at the other message board?

*shrug*

[Scott Lloyd]

Maybe he's used to the more friendly atmosphere at the other message board?

*shrug*

[Calm]

Oh man, my secret identity of Wiki Wonka has been outed.

So you are Wiki and Wiki is Scott, therefore you are Scott (that's "G", not "L" though of course the use of two last names could just be another ploy to hide who is really behind it all.....)

[Scott Lloyd]

So you are Wiki and Wiki is Scott, therefore you are Scott (that's "G", not "L" though of course the use of two last names could just be another ploy to hide who is really behind it all.....)

I think DCP dredged this one up the other day, but -- what the heck? -- it seems appropriate here, so I'll do it again:

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly.

I'm crying.

(from "I Am the Walrus" by the Beatles)

By the way, the word on Mormon Discussions is that I'm a mod, though I believe I'm on record as having denied it.

Supposedly, the other day I asked that a thread be closed, then I logged off, then logged back on as a mod and closed it.

Weird, I know, but that's the supposition.

[USU78]

So . . . I'm the one called Bag a hack, and I don't rate a despicable?

I'm so disappointed. Perhaps I should advertise?

[Scott Lloyd]

So . . . I'm the one called Bag a hack, and I don't rate a despicable?

I'm so disappointed. Perhaps I should advertise?

And on the other hand, Pahoran, who never once addressed Trevor on this thread, was among the three of us indicted by Scratch for behaving "despicably" toward Trevor. I guess the proverb is true: Some are born despicable; some aspire to despicableness, while others have despicableness thrust upon them.

[LifeOnaPlate]

So you are Wiki and Wiki is Scott, therefore you are Scott (that's "G", not "L" though of course the use of two last names could just be another ploy to hide who is really behind it all.....)

[Scott Lloyd]

I may be topping this a few times in the event someone can point out a clear instances on this thread when Trevor/Hiram Page was treated "despicably," as Scratch put it, or in a manner "not consistent with Christian values," as Trevor put it less histrionically.

[Hyrum Page]

I may be topping this a few times in the event someone can point out a clear instances on this thread when Trevor/Hiram Page was treated "despicably," as Scratch put it, or in a manner "not consistent with Christian values," as Trevor put it less histrionically.

Wow. You guys must be pretty bored. Didn't this happen some time ago? I thought we had put all of this behind us. Well, at least I thought I had cleared the air with Blair.

[Scott Lloyd]

Wow. You guys must be pretty bored. Didn't this happen some time ago? I thought we had put all of this behind us. Well, at least I thought I had cleared the air with Blair.

I thought things were OK until I saw the chatter on the other board about "despicable" behavior, inconsistency with "Christian values" and being "jumped by a gang." That was a bit puzzling.

[William Schryver]

Some are born despicable; some aspire to despicableness, while others have despicableness thrust upon them.

And then there are the chosen few who are all of the above.

[mnn727]

The funny thing is that no one outside of the Mormon and anti-Mormon community care or in most cases even knows what MMM was. Its ancient history