8 Ridiculously Inappropriate Phrases And Acts In Sherlock Holmes Stories

7. 'Invalid' €“ The Musgrave Ritual

This example is drawn from the short story The Musgrave Ritual. Doyle developed the character of Holmes through a series of short stories for The Strand, enabling the mystery to be introduced, studied, and solved in one reading. This contrasted the traditional method of serialising books so that the reader had to stay almost entirely up to date in order for it to remain accessible. Without spoiling the plot for those that would like to read the story, a rather privileged man is informed that one of his maids, who had been ill, had gone missing in the middle of the night. To this he responds that there were 'no signs of the invalid.' Obviously invalid is an applicable term for someone who has succumbed to disastrous weakness due to a sudden illness, yet we tend not to use this sort of phrase these days as it has become associated with images that stigmatise the disabled; to describe someone as an invalid in our contemporary surroundings would likely be ensued by condemnation by the press and surrounding citizens; in Doyle's day this was simply not the case as ideas surrounding disability and inability to work were profoundly different to how we see these issues. Language is an amazing tool; one word can draw so many inferences and meanings that we must all be careful as to what words we use. This necessity for care is what creates the appearance of inappropriate phrases in the Holmes books.