This spring, it seems that Peoria has been put in a migration path for Sherlockians.  A few familiar faces have been wandering through to say “hello” to my friendly neighborhood Lascar , the good Carter, and myself. This past week brought that oft-seen poster on the Hounds of the Internet, May Blunder, to our neighborhood.

If you’ve ever met May Blunder, a.k.a. Karen Murdock, a.k.a. the Minnesota Moxie, a.k.a. the Bulletin Board Blasphemer, a.k.a. the  . . . well, I’d better stop while I’m ahead . . . you know that she’s one unstoppably energetic Sherlockian.   This visit, she held a great folded chart the size of a large bandana, which she unfurled once we had settled at a nearby Mongolian restaurant.  The result of four end-to-end reads of the Canon, her chart was an enormous spreadsheet  documenting figure of speech usage in the sixty tales of Sherlock Holmes. And they weren’t just any figures of speech!

You’ve probably heard of metaphors,  hyperbole, or irony. But when was the last time you read a good epizeuxis?  Or remarked upon a zeugma? Or a preteritio? Or an isocolon?

May Blunder had counted asyndetons, aposiopeses, antimetaboles, and plenty of other things that sound like they come from a Dr. Seuss book.  Working from the notion that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classical education  gave him an ample rhetorical toolbag,  her latest research endeavor  shows just how wide a use of those tools he made.  An analysis of the data will be the next step, and one wonders just where that will take things.

But rhetoric wasn’t the only Sherlockian matter we discussed with May Blunder, as with any visit, there were those little bits of news and gossip, talk of Sherlockian adventures past, and those ahead.  From here, she headed on to Missouri, hopefully not becoming  so enamored of Harold Bell Wright that she gives up on Conan Doyle!

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver