russ@dadla-a.UUCP (11/13/83)
Since there have been some question as to how reliable wordprints are and whether they can be faked, let me add the following information. Wordprints are accepted sufficiently to be allowed as evidence in federal courts. Much of the work on this type of technique has been done by A. Q. Morton and he has published a book "Literary Detection" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1979). One study examined two books by Sir Walter Scott, one written early in his career, the other just before he died. Even though Scott had suffered four strokes during the intervening time period, there were no significant differences in wordprints either within the two works or between them. [Morton, p.134-36, 142-43] In all studies about whether an author can change his wordprint style there is either no significant differences or at most very few minor differences. [Morton, p. 132-7] As to the question of whether an author can change or imitate another style, it has been shown that where an imitation is compared to the wordprint of the original, "the result resembles its creator more than it does the model." [Morton, p.191] Can wordprints survive translation? In a recent study twelve German novellas, written by twelve distinct individuals, were all translated by the same American author. When the wordprints of the twelve German authors were compared by MANOVA, differences were readily apparent, with statistical significance of a very high order. A sizable body of writing in English by the translator was also available. When his wordprint in these writings was compared with the wordprints of the twelve German authors (translated) the differences were very highly significant. As an additional check the translator's own writings were divided into subgroups. These subgroups of blocks of words were compared statistically by use of MANOVA. No significant differences were found. Russell Anderson Tektronix