Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Aptronym rambling
Noticed a new item at Kans State Hist Soc. A hundred-year-old mugshot of a prisoner. Reminded me of my great-grandfather. Tried searching for more info, quickly realized it's an impossible search. The prisoner was named Warren Jury and he was arrested and tried in Leavenworth. The name Jury leads to every trial in history, and Leavenworth leads to nearly all Federal prisoners, even though this dude was not a Federal prisoner.
I'll bet the courts and newspapers had fun with his trial. If the Jury trial was a jury trial, all sorts of strange things would happen.
"Are you on the Jury jury?" "No no, I'm not not. Why why are you you st-st-st-stuttering?"
"We the jury find Jury guilty."
Was he suspected of Jury jury tampering? Jury jury rigging? Was he a peeping Tom, entitled to trial by a jury of Jury's peering peers?
And if the Jury trial wasn't a jury trial ... but how could a Jury trial not be a jury trial? When it's a Jury trial by judge.
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How far could a trial descend into aptronym hell? Jury is not an especially common name, but Court, Judge, Clerk, Foreman, Rule, Record, Justice and Law are common names.
Judge Judge ruled against Lawyer Rule and in favor of defendant Rob Banks, but Foreman Foreman objected and Clerk Clerk read the objection to Attorney A.T. Law, transcribed into the Court Record by Court Recorder Court Record.
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Later, a little more searching inside KSHS found a little more info. Warren Jury was in for Assault with intent to kill. Aw poop. No fun at all.
Labels: Aptronym Alert
¶ 8:48 AM
