Has Anyone Made a Deduction About Someone?

Anubis

If there's one thing we've learned from AC's mysteries, it is that a deduction can be made about everyone. Has anyone ever looked at fellow colleague or a friend or a stranger in the street and made a deduction about them? I once deduced a fellow had at least one cat by the scratches on his hand.

Griselda

I have made deductions that people aren't very scrupulous based on their actions and backed up by their demeanour. People like that tend to be master of the moment, manipulating other people's responses. Body language wise, once they have got in the car to drive off or have left the room the expression vanishes from their face, whe for most of us, what we are thinking leaves its impression on their features and posture. They are very aware of how things will look on the surface, and don't bother to do a job of work properly because they don't need to. I once was in a group with two other students and we had to plan a series of lessons as though we were going to teach them. He was the only one of the three of us who realised that we only had to give a presentation and not actually teach the series, so it didn't actually matter if the content of the module was rubbish, was hastily sketched in, and if the other two of us didn't understand it. He got all the credit and the series was unteachable and I got told by the tutor to stop holding things up.

shana

Making deductions of someone as HP and before him Sherlock Holmes did, requires knowledge of relevent patterns, facts of typical behaviour, of the culture, of the surroundings etc.. Otherwise you won't be able to correctly deduct anything.

I was never able to deduct much on the basis of what AC described about a character because I was and still am not very much familiar with the English way, especially in the time-period she described.. I just took it in, never able to verify it or check it against my own personal experience/knowledge as I had none.

In surroundings familiar to yourself it is much easier to deduct because you simply have the knowledge  and experience to interpret what you see correctly. 

Anubis

Interesting comments, and quite true, but what I meant was, have you ever made a deduction about someone who you met or saw, based entirely on something you observed about that person. So that, for instance, if you were to say, "What is your cat's name?" The person would say, "How on earth did you know that I have a cat?"

taliavishay-arbel

I haven't made that kind of deduction. But I used to work in a pretty toxic (socially) environment, but my department (just 6 people) was nice and my boss was a wonderful woman - kind, professional and very good to work for. Sometimes somebody from another department would do or say something, and I would interpret it as manipulation or in a negative way, and my boss would tell me it was just my negativity. Then a couple of days later she would see (and say) I was right. I'm not sure that my negative intuition was better than her positive attitude!

Griselda

Absolutely! I know this isn't the Sherlock Holmes style of deduction of which Anubis writes, but it is a bit Ariadne Oliver, and like your experience, Tali, work related. I have succeeded in tracing reports back to their source, and discovered, detective-like, a phenomenon of the person who says they have heard something about one, actually being the person who has spread that report and abroad, and is covering their tracks by saying they heard it from another! Being more Sherlock Holmes-like, I have fun guessing if styles of jacket are French, or German, when I see tourists. I am also pretty good at judging the era of photos from hairstyles, and oddly enough, bone structure. I am convinced that as the decades have passed, and as a result, perhaps, of ubiquitous central heating, people are not only taller, but physiologically, cheek bones, brows and foreheads will actually seem less heavy and pronounced than they used to be in the 1960s, 70s, and earlier. Because people didn't used to wash their hair as frequently as today, in older photos they tend to have more luxuriant growth of hair.

Griselda

Shana, I think what you say is why I like the stories located in one place ( such as Evil Under the Sun) when the action is played out with moves and dialogue on the page, and we sort of experience what is going on. We are given the advantage which Poirot or Miss Marple had. It isn't as satisfying to hear only reports of a murder, as we do for the second murder in Three Act Tragedy. As for murders committed years before, as in Five Little Pigs, I personally do not find it fair play to have to deduce motives at the time from later reports, not getting a good feel for it all and what every player is doing and whether it seems natural or not. Ok, Poirot is in the same boat as us, in Five Little Pigs, but even so but it isn't as satisfying a read, especially when even some of the key characters have subsequently died. As for Postern of Fate, do me a favour: none of the atmosphere and dynamics of the actual time of the crime are there at all. Give me The Moving Finger and Murder at the Vicarage contemporaneous action any time!

Anubis

People are taller. Paul Krugman, in his macroeconomics textbook, points out that the natives of China are much taller in the current generation than in previous ones. This is a result of improved nutrition, but no doubt central heating as well. Tali, you sound like Miss Marple, always thinking the worst of everyone, and always right to do so! I think people washed their hair often in the 1960s and 1970s, but the fashion then was to blow dry and style it. My own coiffure was quite luxuriant in the 1960s. These days, the barber charges me more because it is harder to find the hair cut.

Anubis

the last two words should be three words: "hair to cut".

shana

Well Griselda, in my work I often get the occassion to deduct the way you described. From appearance, choice of words, from clothing, from background facts I know of, I often correctly deduct facts about persons I speak/meet.

What I like especially is getting to the bottom of an expressed opinion by someone. By breaking down to the basic why"s, how's, what is the cause and what's the effect, how did he/she reach the conclusion.

Having a lot of general knowledge about a lot of subjects helps.  

Griselda

Sure, Shana; general knowledge, and also life experience. I wonder if you would agree with Miss Marple when she says that there are a small number of basic psychological types, and that you can understand a person be making a link to,someone else you have known. By the way, do you ever do what Miss Marple , does, Shana, and think that a person you have met is like another you have known in the past? Miss Marple was always being reminded of the fishboy, or the hairdresser's assistant, or someone else residing in the village. Have you ever extrapolated meaning concerning a person by using Miss Marple's approach?

shana

No Griselda I haven't tried Miss Marple's Method consciously. There have been times that I noticed certain similarities between two persons, but actively sitting and linking one person to another person with a similar get- up I have met earlier. No, I don"t  know that many people that close and I generally don't have the time to sit and think about that.

I do discern certain patterns of behaviour that could point in a certain direction. Like a behaviour indicitive of a history of domestic violence, or of an person who puts everyone else first and completely forgets about herself. I generally make  a checklist of certain behaviour-patterns in my head, but I don"t link that list to actual persons. I often find that each person is somewhat different.

tudes

Sure. And I use Miss Marple's methods. When I start to talk to someone or know someone I try to find with whom that person is alike (in personality) among my friends or someone I have already known. I try to find a link by the way she/he acts or speaks or her/his gestures to someone  I have known before. Surprisingly, I'm right most of the time. A.C is a genious!

Tommy_A_Jones

I like to spot what I call Miss Marple Paralell's people who remind me of Characters in the books but some of the People are like people who aren't in MM Books.

tudes

Tommy_A_Jones said:

I like to spot what I call Miss Marple Paralell's people who remind me of Characters in the books but some of the People are like people who aren't in MM Books.

Certainly, but in this case you can compare someone you just met to someone you've already known/met before, a long time ago.