Date of Meeting: 12th August 2023
Location of Meeting:
The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK
Attendees:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)
Apologies:
None.
Presentation:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented the following paper about the most pressing issue in Sherlockiana:
A Moss Rose by Any Other Name?
Sooner or later, Sherlockian scholarship must address the burning question: Would Sherlock Holmes have been more successful if he'd been called Keith? As no one else seems to be willing to tackle this thorny subject, I will heroically step forward to open the debate.
Perhaps the most difficult part of this question is the word “successful”. Success may be measured in so many ways that this is a very ambiguous question. I have chosen a small selection of popular interpretations of “success” and will address each in turn.
IQ
One of the most famous attributes of Sherlock Holmes is his intelligence. As Watson put it: “he was pre-eminent in intelligence.” While IQ tests are problematic they do give us a rough indication of intelligence so let us consider how Sherlock Holmes matches up to other great human minds. In his 1999 book, The Intelligence of Sherlock Holmes and Other Three-Pipe Problems, John Radford estimated Sherlock’s IQ at 190.
Let us compare this to the top 50 recorded IQs*:
Stephen Hawking: 160
Paul Allen: 160-170
Albert Einstein: 160-190
Nicolaus Copernicus: 160-200
Nikola Tesla: 160-310
Emanuel Swedenborg: 165-210
Jacob Barnett: 170
Judit Polgar: 170
Hypatia: 170-210
Cleopatra: 180
John H. Sununu: 180
Marie Curie: 180-200
Leonhard Euler: 180-200
Galileo Galilei: 180-200
John Stuart Mill: 180-200
Leonardo da Vinci: 180-210
Gottfried Leibniz: 182-205
Srinivasa Ramanujan: 185
Ettore Majorana: 183-200
Thomas Young: 185-200
Philip Emeagwali: 190
Mislav Predavec: 190
Richard Rosner: 190-195
Isaac Newton: 190-210
Voltaire: 190-200
Rudolf Clausius: 190-205
Christopher Langan: 190-210
James Maxwell: 190-210
Garry Kasparov: 194
Evangelos Katsioulis: 198
Nadia Camukova: 200
Francis Galton: 200
Michael Grost: 200
Hugo Grotius: 200
Thomas Wolsey: 200
Sho Yano: 200
Edith Stern: 200+
Nathan Leopold: 210
William Shakespeare: 210
Kim Ung-Yong: 210
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: 210-225
Christopher Hirata: 225
Marilyn vos Savant: 228
Terence Tao: 225-230
William James Sidis: 250+
Carl Gauss: 250-300
Ainan Celeste Cawley: 263
Marnen Laibow-Koser: 268
Michael Kearney: 325
Adragon De Mello: 400
As you can see there are neither any Keiths nor Sherlocks on this list. In fact, there are only five names which recur in this list: John, Thomas, Christopher, Michael and William. The calculation is a simple one:
Being named John would have lowered Holmes’s IQ by 3%. Being named Thomas would have raised it by 3%. Being named Christopher would have raised it 12%. Being named William would have raised it 21%. Being named Michael would have raised it 38%. But, most importantly to this study, being named Keith would have made no difference whatsoever to Sherlock Holmes’s IQ.
Recognition
For some, success is all about recognition. For a Victorian gentleman there could be no greater recognition than being honoured by the queen. We know from the Canon that Sherlock Holmes was once offered a knighthood, but refused the honour. Would he have received more royal recognition if he had been called Keith? A quick look at the incomplete “List of honorary British knights and dames” page on Wikipedia gives us all the information we could need. The name “Sherlock” does not appear once on the page. Neither does the name “Keith”. Sherlock did not appear because he did not wish to appear. Perhaps the same is true of Keith. It is certain that Keith Holmes would not have had more knighthoods than Sherlock Holmes, but we cannot say for certain whether Keith Holmes would have had fewer knighthoods than Sherlock Holmes.
Ability As Detective
As it was his chosen occupation, it is fair to consider Sherlock’s success based on his ability as a detective. From the 60 cases Watson elaborated on, we can see that he was, indeed, a very successful detective. However, there are other real-life detectives who are thought to be the greatest in the world**. They are listed here:
Izzy Einstein
Moe Smith
Kiran Bedi
Jay J Armes
Alice Clement
Dave Toschi
William E Fairbairn
Francois Vidocq
Allan Pinkerton
Mary Doyle
Kate Warne
Once again, we see that being called Keith would be neither a help nor a hindrance to Sherlock Holmes. As no name appears more than once on the list, it is fair to assume that none of these names are particularly detectivey.
Wealth
In these materialist times, wealth is often seen as a measure of success. By 1889 we know that Holmes could afford to “princely” payments for his rooms in Baker Street (DYIN). In 1894 he could afford to buy his cousin a doctor’s surgery just to get his chum to lodge with him again (NORW). There can be no doubt that Holmes’s career made him a wealthy man. But how rich might he have been if he had been called Keith? A list of history’s richest people*** sheds light on this:
Mansa Musa of Mali (Unknown–c1337–9)
John D Rockefeller (1839–1937)
Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)
Marcus Licinius Crassus 'The Rich' (c115–53 BC)
Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918)
Mir Osman Ali Khan (1886–1967)
William the Conqueror (c1028–87)
Jakob Fugger (1459–1525)
Henry Ford (1863–1947)
Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877)
If this list proves anything, it is that people with names that start with “M” are 33% more likely to be wealthy than most other letters of the alphabet. As neither “Sherlock” nor “Keith” start with M, neither name has a wealth-advantage.
Fame
Perhaps the most commonly used adjective to describe Holmes is “famous”. To many, this may be considered a type of success. Very few people in the world don’t know who Sherlock Holmes is. Indeed, most would know him just by his hat or pipe. On screen, he has been portrayed more than any other human. But how would his fame have been affected by being called Keith Holmes?
To know this, we must understand what made Holmes famous in the first place. This is easily explained. It comes down to three things – his hat, his pipe and his catchphrase.
Everyone knows what a Sherlock hat is. But what is a Keith hat? Ask Google and it will suggest that you mean a fedora, as this is the type of hat worn by Keith Richards. Although Keith Richards and Sherlock Holmes share an interest in recreational drug use, Richards is not a very good detective and Sherlock would have failed in his chosen career if he had been forced to wear a Keith hat instead of a Sherlock hat.
Similarly, everyone knows what a Sherlock pipe is. A Keith Pipe, on the other hand, is a man who is on the board of directors for Balfour Beatty Management, and his mention in this essay is probably the most attention he has received in his entire life.
As hats and pipes were a big deal for a long time, the Sherlock hat and Sherlock pipe went a long way to making Holmes famous. However, in recent years things have changed - hat wearing and pipe smoking have fallen out of favour. Sherlock’s fame was built on the hat and pipe, but it remains strong due to a third advantage he has – the catchphrase. It is through the daily repetition of his name in the phrase “No shit, Sherlock,” that Sherlock Holmes remains in the collective consciousness of humanity. Were it not for this phrase and our unerring commitment to talking down to each other, Sherlock Holmes would probably be forgotten today. The real strength of this phrase is the alliteration. The “sh” of “shit” and “Sherlock” make it a joy to say. “No shit, Sherlock” has a poetic sound and cadence that “No shit, Keith” could never match. True, we might resort to “No crap, Keith”, but it is barely comparable in terms of eloquence.
In conclusion then, while, superficially, Keith Holmes might have very few disadvantages compared to Sherlock Holmes, the failure of his catchphrase would have been disastrous for his fame. This lack of fame would have resulted in less work and therefore less wealth and recognition. Compared to Sherlock Holmes, Keith Holmes would have been just as intelligent, but utterly frustrated by the lack of opportunity to make the most of his abilities. Most likely he would be insane by the time he was thirty and proceed to work his way through every interpretation of “failure” known to man. With this proven we can finally state that Sherlock Holmes would NOT have been more successful if he'd been called Keith.
*I have no idea where these IQs come from. But I found them listed on a website on the internet, so I am sure they are perfectly sound.
**I have no idea how these detectives have been judged to be greatest. But I found them listed on a website on the internet, so I am sure they are perfectly sound.
*** I have no idea how the wealth of these people has been calculated. But I found them listed on a website on the internet, so I am sure they are perfectly sound.
Any Other Business:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) spoke about chapter five of Sherlock Slept Here by Howard Latchman and how it was well worth a read.
