I don't think phrases like "of the first water" can be very useful in 
identifying a writer'style without comparing them to other writings by 
Twain in The Buffalo Express. It may have been a phrase popular with 
writers and contributors to that newspaper, or may have been in vogue at 
that moment. It seems to me the best test would be to gather up all of 
the stylometric fortitude one can muster (contractions, syntax, grammar, 
spelling, word frequencies, word choices, passive and active voices, 
phrases, etc.) and compare this sketch with the mass of Twain's known 
writings in the Express, as well as other writings in the paper. There 
are two obvious and ample control groups: Twain's known writings in the 
paper, and writings by others in the paper. But there are also two 
complicating factors: The sketch itself is a small sample, and some of 
those writings by "others" in the paper may have been edited by Twain. 
Still, such an approach might yield interesting results.

This brings me to a question: Has anyone ever performed a comprehensive 
linguistic study of Twain's writings over his entire career? That is, do 
we know what his habits were about contractions, voice, syntax, word 
frequencies, etc., for each decade of his writing career? This would be 
tedious, but with computer software, less tedious than ever before. 
Punctuation and other features of various house styles would have to be 
considered, even filtered out, if possible. Twain was silently edited, 
but he also resisted proof readers enough to preserve his style for the 
most part. Twain's stylistic preferences are sometimes on display in 
books he read and annotated. He thought J R Lowell used too many 
"that's" in his sentences, and he corrected W D Howells's phrasing, for 
example. He exercised strong control of his texts during the time he was 
published by Webster, giving his typists specific and strict 
instructions about punctuation. Prior to that, not so much.

Years ago I recall a story about a criminal who was caught when some 
anonymous letters he wrote to his victim or to authorities were 
identified as his because of several traits they displayed: He 
misspelled a couple of words consistently, he tended to make plural 
contractions and third person contractions but not singular or first 
person contractions, and he used some odd phrasing. I don't recall the 
details of the case, and I don't think he was convicted on the basis of 
this forensic linguistics alone. But I think it was used to obtain a 
search warrant to get other evidence, and was later used at his trial.

I suppose what I'm saying is that Twain needs to be treated like a 
criminal suspect.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB, BSA

You can browse our books at:
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com


------ Original Message ------
From: "Barbara Schmidt" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 2/21/2019 8:50:31 AM
Subject: Re: Rediscovered Twain Sketch?

>Matt is on target with describing "of the first water" as originating in
>the gemstone industry.  A check of newspaper archives from the late 1700s
>-- via newspapers.com (there are a handful of newspapers from that early
>date originating in Great Britain) -- indicates diamonds being sold and
>described as "of the first water" -- a reference to clarity of the diamonds.
>
>Barb
>