In each of these stories, the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes solves a case by which everyone else is totally baffled. After having been presented with all the available facts, Holmes picks up on things that most people wouldn’t have noticed—often to the amazement of his sidekick Watson. The police may poke fun at his approach, but Holmes shows again and again that his ability to interpret signs is second to none. So take that, haters.
Holmes often makes accurate remarks about a person’s lifestyle despite barely knowing the person in question. What is it, then, that sets Holmes’s line of thinking apart? It’s not like he’s a mind-reader or magician, so how is he able to make these deductions?
To what extent are denotation and connotation important to Holmes’s investigations?