In 1912 a bookseller named Wilfrid M. Voynich acquired a beautifully illustrated handwritten book (manuscript) written on vellum (vellum is a material that was used for writing before the introduction of paper). The “Voynich manuscript,” as it became known, resembles manuscripts written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, it is written in a completely unknown script. To date, no one has been able to decode the script and understand the book’s content. Several theories have been proposed to explain the origin of the Voynich manuscript.
One theory is that the manuscript is a genuine work on some scientific or magical subject composed in a complex secret code. Anthony Ascham, a sixteenth-century physician and botanist, has been identified as a possible author, since many plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript are quite similar to those in Ascham’s book on medicinal plants, A Little Herbal, published in 1550.
According to some other theories, the manuscript is really a fake and its text has no real meaning. For example, it has been proposed the manuscript was created by Edward Kelley, a sixteenth-century personality who extracted money from nobles across Europe by pretending to have magical powers. Kelley may have created the manuscript as a fake magical book to sell to a wealthy noble. He used a made-up alphabet in a completely random order. It looks like a book of magical secrets, but there is no meaningful underlying text.
Another theory is that the manuscript is actually a modern fake created by Wilfrid M. Voynich himself. As an antique book dealer, Voynich certainly had the knowledge of what old manuscripts should look like and could have created a fake one. Perhaps Voynich’s plan was to sell the fake as a mysterious old book if he received an attractive offer.
The reading and the lecture are both about the explanations of the origin of the Voynich manuscript. The author of the reading argues that they are three possible purposes and authors of the manuscript. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made in the article. He believes that these theories are not particularly plausible.
First of all, the author claims that the manuscript is an important knowledge on the scientific or magical subject which needs to be encoded. The author of this handwritten book might be Anthony Ascham who is a physician and botanist. This point is challenged by the lecturer. He says that the content is not that important to code all of the words. The book of Anthony doesn't contain origin concepts. For example, the herbal which mentions in the book is the common and well-known source. In this case, there is no need to encode the script.
Secondly, the author states that the manuscript might be meaningless and contribute to Edward Kelley who is a magician. He wrote this book in order to sell these books to nobles across Europe. However, the lecturer rebuts this argument. He suggests that in the 16 century, people were easy to fool. Encoding the script needs lots of complex works. It is not ideal for Kelley to spend that much effort to achieve his goal, selling books to rich people.
Finally, the author mentions that the manuscript is actually a modern fake and produced by the book seller M.Voynch. The lecturer, on the other hand, feels that it is impossible that the Voynich could produve the fake one. The modern technology indicates that the ink on book is at least 400 years old. The Voynich should tae the manuscript pages to produce the fake one. But how could the ink from 400 years ago.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 204, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...purposes and authors of the manuscript. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made...
^^^
Line 3, column 333, Rule ID: ALL_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'all the'.
Suggestion: all the
...e content is not that important to code all of the words. The book of Anthony doesnt conta...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 371, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...e all of the words. The book of Anthony doesnt contain origin concepts. For example, t...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 110, Rule ID: SENTENCE_WHITESPACE
Message: Add a space between sentences
Suggestion: Voynch
... fake and produced by the book seller M.Voynch. The lecturer, on the other hand, feels...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 304, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
... ink on book is at least 400 years old. The Voynich should tae the manuscript pages...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, well, at least, for example, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 10.4613686534 172% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 12.0772626932 132% => OK
Pronoun: 27.0 22.412803532 120% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 35.0 30.3222958057 115% => OK
Nominalization: 1.0 5.01324503311 20% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1447.0 1373.03311258 105% => OK
No of words: 303.0 270.72406181 112% => OK
Chars per words: 4.77557755776 5.08290768461 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.17215713816 4.04702891845 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.46681511965 2.5805825403 96% => OK
Unique words: 157.0 145.348785872 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.518151815182 0.540411800872 96% => OK
syllable_count: 426.6 419.366225166 102% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.23620309051 158% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 13.0662251656 168% => OK
Sentence length: 13.0 21.2450331126 61% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 27.8419387565 49.2860985944 56% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 65.7727272727 110.228320801 60% => More chars_per_sentence wanted.
Words per sentence: 13.7727272727 21.698381199 63% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.72727272727 7.06452816374 81% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 4.19205298013 119% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.27373068433 234% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.154213974081 0.272083759551 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0412708718674 0.0996497079465 41% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0435251129209 0.0662205650399 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0916810975396 0.162205337803 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.017141463404 0.0443174109184 39% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 8.0 13.3589403974 60% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 75.2 53.8541721854 140% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 6.0 11.0289183223 54% => Flesch kincaid grade is low.
coleman_liau_index: 9.85 12.2367328918 80% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.77 8.42419426049 92% => OK
difficult_words: 67.0 63.6247240618 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.5 10.7273730684 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 7.2 10.498013245 69% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 20.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.