[Article] "The Strange Quest to Crack the Voynich Code"

[Alin_J]

There's an online news summary article about Voynich research published in University of Chicago's Undark magazine:

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What do you all think?

Jonas

[DONJCH]

Pretty fair summary as far as it goes. The autocopy method could be better described.

I wish journalists would not write in fragments though. And starting sentences with "And" is an abomination.

[Koen G]

I find it well written and agree with the overall conclusion that linguistically it is not like anything we know, which makes it incredibly difficult. 

I would add that the MS presents a colossal challenge on various fields at once, which is probably why specialists in a given field might still fail as soon as they try to take on the MS as a whole. Even though their comments about their area of expertise may be invaluable. 

For people who approach the MS from a humanities background, it may be though to grasp just how problematic the text's statistics are. And people who write about the VM without sufficient knowledge about language and history..well they may get published in Romance Studies 

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Nonsense Don!

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[Anton]

I wish journalists would not write in fragments though. And starting sentences with "And" is an abomination.

I think starting with "and" is an old school approach. And is it not, indeed?

And the author is not a journalist, she's a student in Chicago (as the description states).

[-JKP-]

I had an elementary school teacher who was very old school and would not permit us to start sentences with "and", but I also had another teacher who said there were literary circumstances where it might be appropriate. I do it sometimes, but I try to do it sparingly.

[Anton]

Mark the Evangelist in particular found it very appropriate. After all, it's not academic or other strict-style writing, so why not?

[ReneZ]

But Mark the Evangelist did not write in English.

[Anton]

He's been translated nonetheless

[nickpelling]

...and?





[Sorry, I couldn't resist]

[Alin_J]

And I propose that we call an end to this little sidetrack discussion for now.