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Ms. Livingston:

I think you should know that David Simpson has perpetuated the idea that you have no credibility among your colleagues. He says you altered depositions and falsified expense reports at your last job in New York. He says this is the reason you left so abruptly.

He has spread these stories to people in various departments, including Billing, Personnel, Public Relations and to those at the executive level. It is uncertain how and when our senior partners will deal with this. But if you start getting the cold shoulder, you will know why.

When I first heard of this, I was surprised, but took what he said at face value. Of course, this was before I learned of his voracious appetite for propagating half-truths, gossip, and outright lies, all in the name of somehow making himself look knowledgeable and “better.”

Such a pity. He obviously has talent, but it is all negated by his vile, malicious tongue. All I can think of is a tremendous sense of insecurity. But I digress. I just thought you would like to know.

A friend

After receiving the e-mail, Ms. Livingston turned it over to the law firm. She dismissed the rumor as provably false but was concerned that if David Simpson really was spreading false rumors, it could damage her reputation along with that of the firm. I had spent several years developing methods to analyze language and personality but had never been paid to be a word detective.

What kind of person may have written the note? Is “A friend” a male or female and what is his or her approximate age? What is the person’s link to Ms. Livingston, to David Simpson, and to the firm? Any hints as to the person’s personality traits?

In the years since I worked on the case, several new ways of looking at words have been developed. One involves comparing the words “A friend” used with those of tens of thousands of regular bloggers. For example, by looking at just the function and emotion words, we can guess that there is a 71 percent chance that the author is female and a 75 percent chance that she is between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. It is much harder to get a good read on her personality. One analysis suggests that there is a fairly good chance that the author of the e-mail is high in the trait of narcissism—meaning she may be somewhat conceited and manipulative.

Look more closely at the e-mail and other hints emerge. The person is psychologically connected to the firm (“our senior partners”) and has knowledge of rumors from across several departments within the firm. The person also is working to impress Ms. Livingston by using a large vocabulary. Particularly interesting is the use of words and phrases such as “voracious appetite,” “vile,” and “malicious tongue.” These are Old Testament words that, in other analyses, were primarily used by people between forty-two and forty-four years of age at the time of the project.

One other important clue was the layout and punctuation. The e-mail was professionally typed with paragraphs of equivalent size. There was only one space between the period and the beginning of the next sentence, which suggests the person learned to type after about 1985—when desktop computers became popular—or the person had some background in journalism or publishing before 1985, where the single space after a period was the norm. (My wife, who was in publishing before 1985, explained this to me.)

What happened? When I submitted my report to the senior partner, he was relieved because it precisely matched the person he had suspected—a conscientious women in her early forties with a background in newspapers who had been with the firm for several years. I never learned the final disposition of the case, but I see that Ms. Livingston is now a senior partner with the firm.

WHO WROTE IT? THE ART OF AUTHOR IDENTIFICATION

Deciphering linguistic clues to solve crimes has a rich tradition in criminology. The FBI, various national security agencies, and local