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 main topic of both the reading and the lecture is about a handwritten book named "Voynich manuscript". The article states that no one knows the content and the author of this manuscript but, he mentions three possible assumption about the author and originality of the book. However, the professor explains that there are problems with the arguments and categorically refutes each of them, citing that they are not impractical but also problematic.
To begin with, the author argues that this manuscript might be a work of a scientist named Ascham because the content of a book he wrote, "A little Herbal" is similar to the content of the manuscript. Conversely, this specific argument is challenged by the lecturer, asserting that it does not fit to any works of this scientist. Ascham did not have new ideas and his book was based on well-known scores and knowledge.
Secondly, the writer suggests that the book might not be original and probably does not have any meaningful content. The lecturer, however, rebuts this by mentioning that it seems unlikely that this book is fake. He elaborates on this by bringing the point that people in the sixteenth-century were easy to fool and if a fraud wanted to sell something like that for money, he or she could do a much simpler work.
Finally, the author posits that Voynich might created this fake manuscript to sell. Moreover, in the article, it is stated that because he had knowledge about old books, he was capable of doing so. On the other contrary, the lecturer's position is that according to the estimated date of the manuscript by modern methods, the ink and vellum of the book is 400 years old. Voynich might accessed to a 400 years old vellum but he surely could not access to a 400 year old ink.
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Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
The main topic of both the reading and t...
^^^^^
Line 1, column 238, Rule ID: CD_NN[1]
Message: Possible agreement error. The noun 'assumption' seems to be countable, so consider using: 'assumptions'.
Suggestion: assumptions
...uscript but, he mentions three possible assumption about the author and originality of the...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... impractical but also problematic. To begin with, the author argues that th...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...n well-known scores and knowledge. Secondly, the writer suggests that the b...
^^^^^
Line 13, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... she could do a much simpler work. Finally, the author posits that Voynich ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, conversely, finally, however, if, moreover, second, secondly, so, well, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 7.30242825607 178% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 22.412803532 156% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 35.0 30.3222958057 115% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1493.0 1373.03311258 109% => OK
No of words: 306.0 270.72406181 113% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87908496732 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.18244613648 4.04702891845 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78945641854 2.5805825403 108% => OK
Unique words: 164.0 145.348785872 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.535947712418 0.540411800872 99% => OK
syllable_count: 449.1 419.366225166 107% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 3.25607064018 184% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 21.2450331126 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.7006803969 49.2860985944 85% => OK
Chars per sentence: 114.846153846 110.228320801 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.5384615385 21.698381199 108% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.38461538462 7.06452816374 105% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 5.0 4.19205298013 119% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 4.33554083885 46% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 4.45695364238 179% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.163673172392 0.272083759551 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0628036957336 0.0996497079465 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0550073908183 0.0662205650399 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0998391299316 0.162205337803 62% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0417058328589 0.0443174109184 94% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.3 13.3589403974 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 56.59 53.8541721854 105% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.0289183223 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.32 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.8 8.42419426049 104% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 63.6247240618 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 10.7273730684 135% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 10.498013245 107% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 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.