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March 6, 2015

Strange But True!

Q. Who are “forensic linguists” and what brought them to the fore in the 1990s? How do “forensic astronomers” and “forensic botanists” fit into the picture?

A. All employ their specialized field to detect and solve crimes. The use of linguistics emerged in the 1960s but didn't become popular until the 1990s, with the Unabomber case, reports Jennifer Wood in Mental Floss magazine. All of us have highly individual and identifiable ways of talking and writing, overusing certain words, misspelling others. When FBI linguist James Fitzgerald set out to solve the case of the Unabomber — who had killed several people and injured many more by using homemade bombs — he decided to publish the Unabomber's “manifesto” to see if anyone might recognize the writing style. Several people, including the bomber's brother and sister-in-law, did — and called in. “Soon, Ted Kaczynski was in handcuffs.”


 
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