A Crank Theory Challenge

Richard Hershberger says:

Here we go:

Number one is the major thesis of The Secret History of the English Language by M. J. Harper (or, in its English edition, The History of Britain Revealed). Several commenters dismissed it as lacking a sufficient conspiracy element, but conspiracy theories are only a subset of crank theories. Historical linguistics has a long tradition of crank theories, usually involving the theorist discovering to his delight that his native tongue is the original language from which all others derive.

You can buy a used copy on Amazon for $1.47 plus shipping. I don’t recommend it. While Harper’s claims are satisfyingly bombastic, his execution is mediocre. There is a certain artistry to doing this well. Holy Blood, Holy Grail was a masterpiece. A sensible person could read that and come away thinking that there just might be something to it. Harper lets his crankiness show through too strongly. He is too obviously reflexively contrarian–Slatepitch in overdrive–and he doesn’t actually bullshit all that well. He claims, for example, that there was no such thing as Middle English. It is just Modern English with a bit of eccentric orthography. He proves this by quoting a stanza from Chaucer that is perfectly understandable. Which would be really persuasive to anyone who has never actually read Chaucer, but to anyone who has (which surely includes a substantial portion of his target audience) it is obvious that he has cherry picked. This is pretty much par for the course.

Number two is known as the “Phantom Time Hypothesis.” You can look it upon Wikipedia if you want the neutral point of view version. For the rest of us, we can simply point and laugh. The idea is pushed by a couple of Germans, Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz and Heribert Illig. I cannot find (in an admittedly cursory search) the credentials or affiliations of either, which is suggestive. On the other hand, in some photos Illig looks a little like a young Burt Reynolds, so there is that. I correctly suspected that several of you would already know it, but it is one of my favorite crank theories of all time and I couldn’t resist.

Number three was my own, but my disclaimer that I had not googled it turned out to be on point. This is harder than it looks! There is a somewhat different genuine crank theory out there in which Elizabeth died young and was replaced by a man because, …umm…. Because it seemed like a good idea. My version is more plausible, which I suppose under the circumstances counts as a demerit. In retrospect I should have made it Mary rather than Elizabeth. Or perhaps Elizabeth II. Would any of you have bought that one?

This is fun. I will think about further installments. In the meantime, I claim no proprietary interest in the game. Feel free…Report