Re: Interesting summary of the Timelines

by joyce1938 04.09.13 12:55

the last one went to drafts you told me ,how do I retrieve it ?

by **Hobs** 04.09.13 13:10

joyce1938 wrote:the last one went to drafts you told me ,how do I retrieve it ?

Click on profile top of the screen and then click drafts

by MissesWillYa 04.09.13 14:10

PeterMac wrote:
MissesWillYa wrote:

Didn't one of them also say they wish they'd been "with her at the time"? Which is a really strange thing to say, if they're talking about "the time" of the "abduction," since she couldn't have been "abducted" if they'd been "with her"! Do they mean the whole family of five would have been abducted together if only they'd all been in the apartment then? It's bizarre.
I read that as "wish they had been with her 'at the time' to say their final goodbyes, hold her hand as she slipped away, etc etc"
Otherwise it makes no sense.

IIRC they each said something similar on different occasions. And more than once. Very odd.

Good point, you're probably right that they meant something like that. I agree, it doesn't make any sense otherwise. It's so odd!

by **PeterMac** 04.09.13 16:54

They also used the expression "When IT happened", "being there when IT happened"

It is surely an isolated event, a fall, in injury, a smack, or a death.
An incident rather than a continuing sequence of entering, sedating, selecting, picking up, turning round, exiting, marching round the streets . . .

Would it be normal - even in their McScottish mangled use of the language - do use the words "IT happened" for that ?

Would you, for example, use 'IT' to describe a continuing event like the check on the children ?
"The last time I did IT was at 9:04" doesn't sound right, to me.

by jeanmonroe 04.09.13 17:03

PeterMac wrote:They also used the expression "When IT happened", "being there when IT happened"

It is surely an isolated event, a fall, in injury, a smack, or a death.
An incident rather than a continuing sequence of entering, sedating, selecting, picking up, turning round, exiting, marching round the streets . . .

Would it be normal - even in their McScottish mangled use of the language - do use the words "IT happened" for that ?

Would you, for example, use 'IT' to describe a continuing event like the check on the children ?
"The last time I did IT was at 9:04" doesn't sound right, to me.

And Rachel Oldfield did say 'they couldn't have done IT' and ' they didn't do IT'

She never did say what the IT was, that the McCanns 'couldn't have done and didn't do'!

by MissesWillYa 04.09.13 17:05

PeterMac wrote:They also used the expression "When IT happened", "being there when IT happened"

It is surely an isolated event, a fall, in injury, a smack, or a death.
An incident rather than a continuing sequence of entering, sedating, selecting, picking up, turning round, exiting, marching round the streets . . .

Would it be normal - even in their McScottish mangled use of the language - do use the words "IT happened" for that ?

Would you, for example, use 'IT' to describe a continuing event like the check on the children ?
"The last time I did IT was at 9:04" doesn't sound right, to me.

Hmm...that's a good question. I think I would say "The last time I checked was at 9:04" or just "The last time was at 9:04." To use "it happened" is definitely strange; when WHAT happened? is the natural question in anyone's mind when they hear that. The children were asleep in their beds last time you checked, or so you claim, therefore nothing was "happen[ing]" at all. An "it" happening is a whole different ball of wax.

by comperedna 04.09.13 17:19

When 'it' happened eh? I guess TM will say 'it' was an oblique reference to 'the abduction', but those sentences from other members of the T9 certainly make 'it' seem like a short, specific event rather than a process.

by russiandoll 04.09.13 17:38

I am convinced that IT was a short sharp incident, leaving a mess to be cleaned up.

    Just as would be the case if a can of beans had fallen off a shelf.

   The linguist in me keeps zooming on the language used in the book so sorry for harping on. This is what I would highlight in the most fluorescent colour.
I have taught literature and if I were teaching using this book, I would ask my students the following :

of all the words in the world which could be chosen to be critical of an inadequate reaction to hearing a child had been taken away......

why choose these ?

1. A CAN . 2. BEANS.    3. FALLEN.   4. SHELF.

and remember the concept of IMAGERY.

You have a hard casing inside of which is something solid but bathed in liquid, which, when landing after a fall from a ledge or other flat horizontal surface, would be dented and which if split open anywhere would release some liquid on to the surface on which it had landed.

And just as a matter of interest.

In what circumstances might a can of beans fall from a shelf without human intervention?
In what circumstances might that happen with human intervention?

And do you think this can contained   kidney beans, butter beans or baked beans? Remember that the writer is British.

Just some thoughts .........

by aiyoyo 04.09.13 18:18

jeanmonroe wrote:
PeterMac wrote:They also used the expression "When IT happened", "being there when IT happened"

It is surely an isolated event, a fall, in injury, a smack, or a death.
An incident rather than a continuing sequence of entering, sedating, selecting, picking up, turning round, exiting, marching round the streets . . .

Would it be normal - even in their McScottish mangled use of the language - do use the words "IT happened" for that ?

Would you, for example, use 'IT' to describe a continuing event like the check on the children ?
"The last time I did IT was at 9:04" doesn't sound right, to me.
And Rachel Oldfield did say 'they couldn't have done IT' and ' they didn't do IT'

She never did say what the IT was, that the McCanns 'couldn't have done and didn't do'!

You would think IT applies more accurately to an accident rather than an incident.
An abduction is an incident where time is not a known factor you can't pin point the time, so using IT or AT THAT TIME as a point of time reference when you wished to be there is weirdly bizarre.
Whereas in accident scenario - an injury, a death - the victim would remain in situ for the duration of time it takes for help to arrive.

by comperedna 04.09.13 18:30

I would like to think SY had also thought along these lines, whatever their supposed brief. Surely some of them, most of them, know how many beans make five linguistically. All circumstantial, of course, but comments like that 'it', and the main players' behaviour after 'it' happened are highly significant in the book of anyone with a few of Poirot's 'little grey cells' to rub together.

If SY do not come up with a live 10 year old; a body which can be proved to be hers; or a totally convincing explanation of what happened to it (sufficient to convince the majority of people who have thought long and hard about this case) they will have FAILED UTTERLY; will have been made to look ridiculous; and what is more they will have been partty to the waste of a HUGE amount of taxpayers' money which could have been spent on seeking out and returning to their legal guardians lots of other children abducted by foreign parents, for instance.

by Guest 04.09.13 19:54

russiandoll wrote:I am convinced that IT was a short sharp incident, leaving a mess to be cleaned up.

Just as would be the case if a can of beans had fallen off a shelf.

The linguist in me keeps zooming on the language used in the book so sorry for harping on. This is what I would highlight in the most fluorescent colour.
[...].

***
Have you read Arthur Dreyfus' book "Belle Famille"? They're called McCands, they're French and holidaying in Italy, they loose their "son" Madec ... and Maman has thrown the body into the ocean, after Madec fell of a chair, trying to get to his forbidden toy on a high shelf, whilst holding a kitchen knife ...

by Nereid 04.09.13 23:41

Châtelaine wrote:
russiandoll wrote:I am convinced that IT was a short sharp incident, leaving a mess to be cleaned up.

Just as would be the case if a can of beans had fallen off a shelf.

The linguist in me keeps zooming on the language used in the book so sorry for harping on. This is what I would highlight in the most fluorescent colour.
[...].
***
Have you read Arthur Dreyfus' book "Belle Famille"? They're called McCands, they're French and holidaying in Italy, they loose their "son" Madec ... and Maman has thrown the body into the ocean, after Madec fell of a chair, trying to get to his forbidden toy on a high shelf, whilst holding a kitchen knife ...

Wow! Just googled the author. Wonder what inspired him to write such a book.

by Guest 04.09.13 23:50

Nereid wrote:
Châtelaine wrote:
russiandoll wrote:I am convinced that IT was a short sharp incident, leaving a mess to be cleaned up.

Just as would be the case if a can of beans had fallen off a shelf.

The linguist in me keeps zooming on the language used in the book so sorry for harping on. This is what I would highlight in the most fluorescent colour.
[...].
***
Have you read Arthur Dreyfus' book "Belle Famille"? They're called McCands, they're French and holidaying in Italy, they loose their "son" Madec ... and Maman has thrown the body into the ocean, after Madec fell of a chair, trying to get to his forbidden toy on a high shelf, whilst holding a kitchen knife ...
Wow! Just googled the author. Wonder what inspired him to write such a book.

***
Well, that's obvious, isn't it?
Apart from that it is very, very well written and already got him a prestigious award.

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