TPO35 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.
Both the reading and the lecture discuss the mysterious origin of the “Voynich manuscript”. The author provides three possible explanations but the professor does not agree with them. Instead he gives three refutations.
Firstly, the speaker states that Anthony Ascham would not be a possible author because the concept of the manuscript does not fit with what we know about Anthony. According to the professor, Anthony was an ordinary botanist and his books did not contain any original information. In addition, the content of his book originated from other resources. That is, it is unlikely that he was the author.
In the second place, the professor contracts the second theory by contending that the manuscript could not be just a fake because it took a lot of care to make. Furthermore, people in the past are not that smart. As a result, one did not have reason to put a lot of work to create a fake manuscript to cheat on other people. Consequently, the second theory is wrong.
Thirdly, the professor challenges the third theory. He further explains that the timing is not reasonable with the theory. To illustrate, the ink used is a 4oo year old ink and where would the dealer get the ink and create the manuscript. Obviously, the last explanation has weakness as well.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 195, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Instead,
...the professor does not agree with them. Instead he gives three refutations. Firstly,...
^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, first, firstly, furthermore, second, so, third, thirdly, well, in addition, as a result, in the second place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 10.0 10.4613686534 96% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 3.0 5.04856512141 59% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 7.30242825607 68% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 12.0772626932 58% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 15.0 22.412803532 67% => OK
Preposition: 22.0 30.3222958057 73% => 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: 1081.0 1373.03311258 79% => OK
No of words: 219.0 270.72406181 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.93607305936 5.08290768461 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.84690116678 4.04702891845 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87082095875 2.5805825403 111% => OK
Unique words: 127.0 145.348785872 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.579908675799 0.540411800872 107% => OK
syllable_count: 327.6 419.366225166 78% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 14.0 21.2450331126 66% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.0663893501 49.2860985944 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 72.0666666667 110.228320801 65% => OK
Words per sentence: 14.6 21.698381199 67% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.46666666667 7.06452816374 120% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 4.33554083885 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.130881883181 0.272083759551 48% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0367434435076 0.0996497079465 37% => Sentence topic similarity is low.
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0599608861525 0.0662205650399 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0768528620514 0.162205337803 47% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0406530053334 0.0443174109184 92% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.1 13.3589403974 68% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 65.73 53.8541721854 122% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 7.6 11.0289183223 69% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.78 12.2367328918 88% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.94 8.42419426049 94% => OK
difficult_words: 50.0 63.6247240618 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 7.6 10.498013245 72% => OK
text_standard: 8.0 11.2008830022 71% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 71.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 21.5 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.