The Bixby Letter

[wsanto]

(04-08-2013 05:47 PM)ELCore Wrote:  Let us remove personalities from the issue.

Let's say there's an author Aye and an author Bee. We know (1) that Aye wrote certain works, and (2) that Bee wrote certain other works. But there are a number of works (3) that may have been written either by Aye or by Bee, we aren't sure whom, though a large percentage were probably by Bee.

The word "oxymoronic" occurs once, in a letter we shall call Dubium, among the works that may have been by Aye or by Bee, of which a large percentage were probably by Bee.

The word "oxymoronic" does not occur in any of the writings known to be by Aye, but "oxymoronic" occurs many times in the writings known to be by Bee.

Whom do we more reasonably conclude wrote Dubium, Aye or Bee?

And, is this, or is it not, a fair transposition of the question at hand?

I conclude that since Bee uses the word "oxymoronic" a lot and Aye does not then most of the works in question were probably written by Aye since Bee did not follow his usual pattern of using the word "oxymoronic" in any of these works.

Since Bee did not write most, if any, of these works then there is less of a chance that he wrote "Dubium", and more of a chance that Aye used the word "oxymoronic" uniquely in this particular work in question.

But maybe Bee wants us to think he wrote "Dubium" and claims to not have only written that work but all the works in question.

To be more fair--

Prior to Bee claming he wrote "Dubium" and most of these works in question he put all these works into a volume he called the Collected Works of Aye. And also, Aye signed all these works as though he was the author, and a lot of people called Aye "Honest Aye" but nobody called Bee "Honest Bee".