User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1451563-20180913002703/@comment-24894325-20181205172701

Scrooge MacDuck wrote: Again you overlook my interpretation Overlook = do not argue against it at the moment? Indeed, I wasn't. At the moment. :)

Scrooge MacDuck wrote: And I don't think it's been proven that the Series 10 wasn't a joke. That doesn't mean much in the grander scheme of things, since the definitely-non-jokey quote from the comic is just as decisive, but I won't have the perfectly-true statemnt "the Series 10 quote is a joke" painted as just a straw-grasping argument. You misunderstand me. I'm a mathematician. When I say "the only argument", in no way do I mean a bad argument, or wrong argument, or insufficient argument. One proof is sufficient in mathematics. I never believed this argument myself, but I could not conclusively disprove it either, which is why I mentioned hedging. I strongly disagree with the "perfectly-true" characterisation. But I never meant to say that the argument was perfectly false either, or straw grasping. It simply happens sometimes that something that comes across as a joke was not meant as one. SOTO at some point persuaded me and many others that "Petronella" as Osgood's name must have been a joke. It was a brilliant and thorough statistical and contextual analysis of the text. It later (1+ years later) turned out that it was intended as her real name because it was used in credits and in text in other stories.

So no offence was intended. Simply a statement that taking multiple quotes together invalidates the theory that Series 10 quote was a joke.

Scrooge MacDuck wrote: Beyond these three points, thank you for the in-depth post and novel-checking! Always at your service.