Prescriptivist's Corner: The Catastrophe of Apostrophes

1 September 2002

One of the more troublesome punctuation marks is the simple apostrophe. Editors and writers simply cannot agree on its proper use. There is no disagreement over the major function of the mark, but like many things the devil is in the details. The application of the apostrophe is a grammatical catastrophe.

One would think it was simple enough. Over its history, the apostrophe has served three basic functions, one of which has been falling out of use in recent years. First, it substitutes for missing or silent letters. Second, it marks the possessive case. Finally, the practice that is dying out is the use to mark the plural of acronyms, numbers, or letters.

Sins of Omission
The apostrophe was introduced into English in the 16th century as a means of marking where a letter or letters were omitted. Today, this most commonly occurs in contractions, like it’s for it is and don’t for do not. But the apostrophe is also used in certain words that are traditionally spelled with their silent letters omitted to better represent pronunciation. These include fo’c’s’le (forecastle), bo’s’n (boatswain), ne’er-do-well (never-do-well), rock ‘n’ roll (rock and roll), and o’er (over). And the apostrophe can also be used in place of the letter e in the adjectival suffix –ed when the root word ends in a fully pronounced vowel. Thus you have shampoo’d hair instead of shampooed hair, subpoena’d witness instead of subpoenaed witness, and shanghai’d sailor instead of shanghaied sailor. Not all writers and editors follow this last practice (and evidently from the red squiggles that are appearing on my computer screen, Microsoft’s spell checker doesn’t like it much either), but use of the apostrophe in such instances cannot be considered incorrect, just in violation of house style.

The apostrophe can also be used to substitute for omitted numerals. This is most commonly done in dates: the ‘60s.

Possessive/Genitive
The second major use of the apostrophe is in forming the possessive (genitive) case.

The singular possessive of nouns and the possessive of plurals that do not end in s are formed with ‘s (e.g., Vinnie’s loan and men’s wagers). The possessive of plurals that end in s are formed with just an apostrophe (e.g., the brass knuckles’ shiny surface).

This rule for possessives is almost invariable. Singular nouns and names that end in the letter s take ‘s to form the possessive. Thus, it is Charles’s, not Charles’. There are three exceptions. The first is a handful of classical names that end in s. These take just the apostrophe to form the possessive. Thus it is Achilles’ heel, Moses’ laws, and Jesus’ parables.

The second exception is in proper names of places and institutions. In some cases, the apostrophe is dropped and the possessive is formed with just an s. There is no rule to determine when to drop the apostrophe; you just have to rely on tradition or the institution’s preference. Thus Vinnie might be locked up on Riker’s Island, but his hometown is Toms River, New Jersey. He might knock over Barclays Bank, but he would torch Woolworth’s Department Store for the insurance money. The trend in recent years has been for businesses to drop the apostrophe in their names.

The third exception is in the phrase for goodness’ sake(s). Traditionally, this term only takes the apostrophe, not the ‘s. Some authorities also claim that it should be for conscience’ sake and for appearance’ sake as well, but this is not followed by the majority of American writers. Most writers and editors prefer for conscience’s sake and for appearance’s sake.

The possessive of pronouns is a bit different than it is for nouns. Personal pronouns do not take an apostrophe in the possessive: his, hers, its, theirs, yours, and ours. Impersonal and indefinite pronouns, however, do take the apostrophe: anybody’s guess, each other’s wagers, one’s debts, and somebody else’s money.

Remember, the most common error regarding the apostrophe is confusion between it’s and its. It’s is the contraction for it is and its is the possessive pronoun. Even the best writers make this error, often the result of carelessness, rather than ignorance.

While the rule on possessives is simple and (almost) universal, in actual application it can be a bit complex at times.

Possessive of Compound Nouns
Compound nouns only take the ‘s at the end of the final element: Duke of Edinburgh’s gaffe, Genco Olive Oil’s customers.

Possessive of Joint Nouns
The phrase Vinnie and Sonny’s buttonmen indicates that Vinnie and Sonny are partners and jointly employ a group of buttonmen. Vinnie’s and Sonny’s buttonmen indicates that there are two groups of buttonmen, each individual employing one of the groups.

Double Possessive
Then there is the question of the double possessive. I probably shouldn’t go off on a rant here, but it never ceases to amaze me when linguists and lexicographers abuse the language to the point that they utterly fail to communicate. Of all people, they should know better. Here is what Robert Burchfield, editor of the OED2, has to say about the double possessive: “The currency of the type a friend of my father’s is not in question. It is called the post-genitive in CGEL; Jesperson says that of-phrases thus used should not be called partitive but ‘appositional’; the OED describes the construction as ‘of followed by a possessive case or absolute possessive pronoun: originally partitive but subseq. used instead of the simple possessive (of the possessor or author) where this would be awkward or ambiguous, or as equivalent to the appositive phrase’.” I don’t know about you, but it took me about three hours to figure out what Burchfield means. What is the point of writing a grammar manual if no one can understand what you say?

What Burchfield is trying to say is that constructions like a friend of my father’s or a buttonman of Vinnie’s are a common English idiom. On the face of it, the addition of the ‘s is redundant and unnecessary, but it has been done this way since we were speaking Middle English. There is nothing wrong with the double possessive. Now, why didn’t he just say that?

Adjectival Names
A common error is to use the possessive when a proper name is used as an adjective. It should be Vinnie altered the spread for the Giants game, not Vinnie altered the spread for the Giants’ game.

Possessive of Possessive Names
Many businesses, like McDonald’s or Woolworth’s, use the possessive form as their name. How does one use these in the possessive? Technically, I guess one could write McDonald’s’s quarterpounders or Woolworth’s’s toys, but the only good way is to create the possessive with a prepositional phrase, as in the quarterpounders at McDonald’s or the toys at Woolworth’s.

Inanimate Objects
Some authorities argue that inanimate objects cannot possess other things, therefore one should not use the ‘s with things. They say it should be the shiny surface of the brass knuckles, not the brass knuckle’s shiny surface. This is a silly argument. One does not avoid the ownership question by using of instead of ‘s. And the possessive case is not really about ownership. If it were, Karl Marx wouldn’t have written, “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” After all, it’s the capitalists and not the workers that own everything. He would have written, “…nothing to lose but the chains that bind you.” Rather, the possessive is really about identification and reference, about winnowing the universe of shiny surfaces down to the one shiny surface associated with a particular pair of brass knuckles. There is nothing wrong with using ‘s with inanimate objects.

Forming Plurals
In years past, the apostrophe was commonly used to form plurals of abbreviations and numerals. Hence we had the 1980’s, CPA’s, and mind your p’s and q’s. In recent years, however, this practice has been sharply reduced in occurrence. Today you are much more likely to see 1980s and CPAs. In most cases there is no confusion and it is better to simply follow the standard practice of adding just an s to form the plural. Forming the plural of individual letters, however, is tricky. But capitalizing the letter and adding s usually works, as in mind your Ps and Qs.

It is a good practice to keep the rules pure. Don’t use ‘s to form plurals.

American Dialect: New England

1 September 2002

This article is the first in an occasional series that will examine different regional accents across the United States (and if I become ambitious, the English-speaking world).

The New England Yankee dialect is familiar to most Americans. Its standard test is how one says “Park the car in Harvard Yard.” If you say “ Pahk the car in Hahvahd Yahd,” you are from New England, or more specifically from New England east of the Connecticut River.

Like the American Southern and New York City dialects, people in New England drop the R after a vowel sound (in linguistic jargon it is a non-rhotic dialect). Hence park becomes pahk and Harvard Yard becomes Hahvahd Yahd. And many is the New England child who grew up thinking that mirror attached to the car’s windshield was the review mirror, to review what you just passed, not the rear view mirror. But there is a twist. In New England (and in New York City), one does not drop the R at the end of a word if the next word begins with a vowel. Hence, the R is pronounced in car in the above phrase because the next word begins with I. If one were simply giving the command park the car, it would be pronounced pahk the cah because there is no vowel sound following. Southerners drop the R regardless of what comes next.

Another feature of the New England dialect that is expressed in the pahk the car phrase is the Broad A. In most of the United States, the words father and bother rhyme. In New England, they don’t. The difference is the Broad A sound in the New England father. The Broad A is difficult to describe to someone who doesn’t have the sound in their phonological repertoire (i.e., most Americans). But it is sort of a combination of the O in bother and the A in hat.

The third distinct pronunciation difference in New England speech is the Short O. Most words that take a long O vowel instead take a short one in traditional New England speech. So road becomes rud and home becomes hum. The New England Short O, however, is disappearing. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find people that actually use it.

Not all New Englanders speak alike, however. We’ve already mentioned the magic dividing line of the Connecticut River. That river separates Vermont from New Hampshire and bisects Connecticut and Massachusetts. The New England accent is primarily found east of that line, in Eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island, Eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Coastal Maine. West of the river, in Vermont, Western Massachusetts, and Western Connecticut, the New England Accent gives way to the standard Mid-Atlantic and New York City accents. And in Northern Maine you find Quebecois and Canadian English influences. French words creep into speech and the Canadian OU, where about is pronounced aboot, can be found, eh.

Boston, the chief city in New England, has some further variation of its own. Throughout the city, both geographically and socially, you will find that most speak with the standard New England accent. But there are two social groups that have their own distinctive speech.

The first are the Brahmins, the old money, social elites. Their pronunciation is almost British. Like the British, the short A is pronounced as ah, so glass has the same vowel sound as father. The Broad A tends to become a clipped A in Brahmin speak, thus a Brahmin’s beloved alma mater is pronounced Hahvud and marble isn’t mah-ble, it’s mabble. Note the Brahmins still drop the R like the rest of their fellow New Englanders.

The second Boston variation is that of the working class of the center city. It’s very similar to the standard New England accent, but there are a few differences. The short A in many words, like washed, becomes an O, and T is often changed to D. Potatoes, for example, becomes padadahs.

And don’t get me started on the Kennedys. Nobody else talks like that.

Word of the Month: University

1 September 2002

September is back-to-school month. In honor of all those students returning to the classroom, we present a selection of words and terms associated with higher education. Our word of the month is:

University, n., an institution of higher learning, the body of faculty and students of such an institution (c. 1300), from the Anglo-Norman université, ultimately from the Latin universus. In modern American usage, a university typically has both undergraduate and graduate departments and comprises several colleges.

The word university alone is hardly enough to capture a taste of college life. So here is a selection of terms associated with (mostly) American university life.

____ 101, n., at US universities, courses are often numbered with 101-199 being reserved for freshman courses, 201-299 for sophomore ones, and so on. So a course with the number 101 would be the easiest, or most basic course in a particular field. The numbers have passed into the general vocabulary, so that someone who has taken, for instance, Psych 101 has a basic or rudimentary knowledge of psychology.

All-nighter, n., an study session that lasts into the wee hours of the morning. As a general term for late-night work, the term dates to 1895. University usage dates to the 1960s.

Alma Mater, n., the university one attends or attended. From the Latin title for bounteous mother. Originally a title given to a goddess, especially Ceres, transferred to the university by 1803.

Alumnus, n., in American university usage, it has meant a graduate of a university since 1843. The original sense is a student or pupil at a school, one who has been entrusted into the care of the school, since 1645. From the Latin term for a foster child. The plural is alumni. The female Latin form is alumna, plural alumnae, although the female forms are often ignored in English nowadays, except by all-women’s institutions.

Bachelor’s Degree, n., the basic degree conferred upon students at a university. From the Latin baccalaria, a small parcel of land or a farm (bacca = cow). The original sense of bachelor was a young knight or landowner (1297). The university sense (1362) and the sense of an unmarried man (1386) both stem from this original sense. The modern university spelling of baccalaureate degree is the result of an old pun that has become a standard spelling. Bacca lauri means laurel berry, evoking images of laurel wreaths. Occasionally someone mistakes this pun for a true etymology.

Campus, n. and adj., the grounds of a college or university. From the Latin word meaning field. English language use began in 1774 at Princeton.

Co-ed, n. and adj., clipping of co-education and co-educational, the admission of both men and women (or boys and girls) to the same school or institution, a woman (or girl) who attends a school with men (boys). Co-education is US educational jargon from 1852. The clipping co-ed appears as early as 1886. Use of co-ed to denote a female student dates to 1893. The term has fallen out of use since the 1970s as the vast majority of universities admit both men and women and the need to highlight the co-educational nature has disappeared. The sense meaning a female student is considered by some to be sexist and demeaning.

College, n., an institution of higher learning. In modern American usage, a college not affiliated with a university typically has only undergraduate students. It is from the Old French collége, and ultimately from the Latin collēgium, or colleagueship, partnership. Also, an organized group of persons with prescribed functions and privileges, as in the Electoral College, the College of Cardinals, and the College of Surgeons. The general sense is from c. 1380, academic sense from c. 1379.

Curriculum, n., a course of study at a school, from the Latin word for course, career. The term has been in use at English universities since 1633. Curriculum Vitae, or C.V., literally the course of one’s life, is the academic term for a summary of one’s career accomplishments, a résumé. Extra-curricular is an adjective denoting anything having to do with college life that is not directly related to one’s course of study: sports, clubs, parties, etc.

Dean, n., a university official, ranking below the president. From the Middle English deen (1388), originally from the Latin decanum. The Latin term was a military title, the leader of ten men. Gradually, the meaning expanded to civil and ecclesiastical offices as well. Later (1577), dean was applied to resident fellows at Oxford and Cambridge appointed to maintain discipline and behavior among younger students. At other universities, the term was applied to heads of faculty or departments of study (1524).

Dormitory, n. and adj., originally a sleeping chamber, especially a room containing many beds where monks or students sleep (1485), in American usage a residence hall at a university or college (1865). From the Latin dormitorium.

Faculty, n. and adj., the professors and instructors of a university. From the Latin facultatem, or power, ability. The general sense of an ability or aptitude dates to 1490 in English. The sense of a department of learning at a university is older, dating to 1387 (and even earlier in Medieval Latin texts). The sense of the entire teaching staff of a school is more recent and American in origin, dating to 1767.

Fraternity, n., a social group of students (traditionally all male, although some now admit women) at an American university, usually with a name consisting of several Greek letters. The first fraternity was Phi Beta Kappa, established in 1777. (Phi Beta Kappa is no longer a social fraternity, having become an honorary association of scholars). In addition to sponsoring social activities, at many schools fraternities provide room and board to their members. From the Old French fraternité, or brotherhood.

Freshman, n. and adj., a first-year student, a newcomer. The word is a compound of fresh + man. The general sense is from c. 1550, the academic sense from 1596.

Gaudeamus, n., a social gathering of students, a party. From 1823, now archaic. From the first line of student’s drinking song in modern Latin: Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus (Then let us be merry while we are young).

Greek, n. and adj., member of a fraternity, pertaining to the fraternity system. The term Greek-letter society dates to 1888. The clipped form Greek appears in 1934. From the Greek letters used in the names of American fraternities. Girls and Greeks is a term used to denote a fraternity party that is open to women and members of other fraternities (reciprocity), but closed to men who are not fraternity members (G.D.I.s or God-Damned Independents, sometimes Gamma Delta Iotas).

Ivy League, n. and adj., athletic association of Northeast US universities consisting of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale. Originally an unofficial sportswriter’s term (1937) for the Old Ten association, the league was formalized in 1954. Originally, the US Military and Naval Academies were considered part of the Ivy League, but they dropped out of the Old Ten association in 1940 and never joined the formal Ivy League association. The name is from the association with Ivy-covered walls at these venerable institutions. As an adjective, it carries the connotation of old and prestigious schools, among the best in the nation.

Junior, n. and adj., a third-year student at an American college or university. Originally, junior sophister. From the sense of junior = lesser, or lower rank. Since 1766.

Liberal Arts, n., fields of study directed toward general intellectual attainment rather than technical or professional training. From 1387. So called because they are the proper studies for a free or gentleman.

Midshipman, n., a naval academy cadet. Originally it was the lowest ranking naval officer, one in training and who has yet to receive his commission (1626). From amidships + man, their place of duty on deck.

Plebe, n. and adj., a freshman cadet at the US Military Academy or other military schools. It is a clipping of plebeian or commoner. From 1833.

Professor, n., a senior instructor at a university, particularly one who holds an endowed chair. From the Latin professor, one who professes or speaks. Originally one who professes membership in a religious order, it has been used in the university sense since 1380.

Provost, n., the head or dean of the faculty at a university or college (1442). From the Old English profost (c. 961), originally from the Latin praepostitus. The original sense is the head of a religious chapter or community, later transferred to academic use.

Quad, n., clipping of quadrangle, originating at Oxford (1820). A quadrangle is a square or rectangular courtyard surrounded by a building or buildings (1593).

R.O.T.C., abbrev., often pronounced rot-see, Reserve Officer’s Training Corps. A program of military instruction offered at US universities to train officers for military service. Originally a required course of instruction at many institutions, it is now voluntary. Many R.O.T.C. students receive scholarships, with the government paying all or part of tuition in return for a guarantee of several years of military service.

Rush, n. and adj., period during which bids to join a fraternity or sorority are extended to candidates, an adjective describing social activities related to such recruitment, as in rush party. Since 1899. From the rugby and American football term for charging the line in concert.

S.A.T., abbrev., Scholastic Aptitude Test, also known as the College Boards. It is a standardized test taken by American high school students used by universities as a factor in making admission decisions. The S.A.T. consists of two parts, verbal and mathematical, and each is scored on a scale of 200-800. Scores are commonly expressed as a combined score ranging from 400-1600.

Sabbatical, adj. and n., a period (usually a semester or a year) during which a professor has no teaching duties and may pursue research or other work, originally not granted more often than once every seven years; originally US (1886). Sabbatical has an older sense, as an adjective relating to the Jewish Sabbath. The term sabbatical year (1599) refers to Mosaic law that declares that all slaves must be freed and debts forgiven every seven years. The educational sense focused on the seven year requirement, hence the term, although the imagery of being released from the slavery of teaching classes was probably appealing as well.

Semester, n., an academic period, usually half the school year. From the German semester, which in turn is from the Latin semestris (six month period).  In English usage since 1827.

Senior, n. and adj., a fourth-year student at US college or university, a student who is not a freshman at a British one. In academic use since 1651. Originally adjectival in use, as in senior fellow or senior sophister.

Sophomore, n. and adj., a second-year student, now chiefly US in usage. From sophism + -or, one who studies or engages in sophism. Dates to 1688.

Sorority, n., a social group of female students at an American university, usually with a name consisting of several Greek letters. Sororities have existed at American universities since c. 1900.  The term is either from the Medieval Latin sororitas or from the Latin soror (sister) + -ity, in imitation of fraternity. The word has been used to denote female religious orders and groups since 1532.

Tenure, n., guaranteed right of employment granted to senior faculty, intended as a means of encouraging academic freedom. Use in the educational sense is American in origin (1896). From the Latin, via Old French, tenere, meaning to hold. Use as a legal term to denote the right to hold land dates to the 15th century.

Townie, n. and adj., a resident of a college town who is not associated with the school. Townie or towney is predominantly a US usage (1852), but town has been used at Oxford and Cambridge as a term for the local communities as distinct from the universities since c. 1647. The phrase town and gown dates to 1853.

Tuition, n., US clipping of tuition fee (1828). Fee paid by students in return for instruction at a university. Originally from the Norman French tuycioun, from the Latin tuitio, or guard. Tuition has had the sense of teaching or instruction since 1582. Cf. tutor.

Varsity, adj. and n., an abbreviation of university. In the US, use is restricted to sports and sports teams, with the varsity team denoting the one that represents the school, the first-string. Since 1846; 1891 for the sports sense.

Seven Words You Can't Say on Yahoo

1 August 2002

In the 1970s, comedian George Carlin became famous with a routine about seven words one can’t say on television. Carlin’s words were all of the “four-letter” variety. But in this more enlightened age, a different category of words is posing a problem, those that can be interpreted as part of a computer scripting language like JavaScript.

JavaScript is used to give commands to a computer and is commonly used in websites to run search and other such functions. While most JavaScript is innocuous, malicious hackers can use it to run damaging programs. To combat this potential menace, over a year ago Yahoo started subtly changing the text of HTML messages sent over its free email service. (Plain ASCII text messages, which can’t hide JavaScript, are unaffected.) In all, seven words used in JavaScript were changed to synonyms that aren’t. These are:

• eval is changed to review
• mocha is changed to espresso
• expression is changed to statement
• javascript is changed to java-script
• jscript is changed to j-script
• vbscript is changed to vb-script
• livescript is changed to live-script.

The changes are made surreptitiously, without the sender’s knowledge or authorization.

But in a fit of either supreme silliness or incompetent coding, the replacement of these words doesn’t respect word boundaries. So the word medieval, which contains eval, is changed to medireview. Evaluate becomes reviewuate. And retrieval becomes retrireview. And what does Yahoo have against mocha? Well, it turns out that mocha is a JavaScript command that allows a program to enter commands into the user’s browser. (Java/Mocha, get it?)

Googling on medireview, for instance, turns up some 1,100 websites that have incorporated the “word” into their sites. A New York Times book review that is reprinted on another web site includes the sentence: “ It was the great Barbara Tuchman who pointed out the capital difficulties of writing about the Middle Ages: that medireview chronology is very hard to pin down.” Evidently someone in the editorial chain forwarded the text of the Times review via Yahoo email. Book reviews are not the only thing affected, other affected sites include university course descriptions, scholarly papers, and bibliographies.

What is really odd, is that this alteration of text is utterly unnecessary. Altering the HTML tags in the script makes sense and many email programs do this (Yahoo also alters tags), but altering plain text doesn’t add security.

Book Review: The Man Who Deciphered Linear B

1 August 2002

Andrew Robinson has written a clear and concise biography of Michael Ventris, the English architect who solved one of archaeology’s most vexing problems. In 1900, archeologists discovered clay tablets on the island of Crete containing a strange script. The tablets dated to c. 1450 BC, about two centuries before the Trojan War. The writing was utterly unintelligible—no one even knew what language it was in.

For fifty-odd years the tablets were undecipherable. More tablets with the same script, dubbed Linear B, were discovered on mainland Greece, at Pylos in 1939 and at Mycenae in 1950. Unlike Champollion’s decryption of Egyptian hieroglyphics a century before, there was no Rosetta Stone for Linear B, no bilingual inscriptions that pointed the way.

In the first half of the century, archeologist Arthur Evans, who discovered the first Linear B tablets, made minute progress. He determined that most of the tablets were storeroom inventories from the palace at Knossos and he identified the numerals in the script. He also determined that the script was syllabic, rather than alphabetic or hieroglyphic, but the bulk of the writing was unintelligible. Evans believed that the language was a previously unknown one that he dubbed Minoan.

A few scholars postulated that the language was an early form of Greek, but they were generally ignored and scholarly consensus agreed with Evans. Linear B characters resembled a later (c. 800 BC) Cypriot script that was known to be a form of Greek, but there were crucial differences. Notably, the letter S, which is the most common final consonant in Greek, did not seem to be found in the final position in Linear B words. The 1939 discovery of Linear B tablets in mainland Greece revived the Greek hypothesis, but still scholars tended to side with Evans’s Minoan hypothesis. The tablets in Pylos could have been from a Minoan outpost on the mainland or the work of Minoan scribes hired by early Greeks who were illiterate.

Michael Ventris was born in 1922, the son of an English army officer and a Polish immigrant. He never attended university, training as an architect instead. He had no background in archeology or linguistics, although he did have an amazing facility for languages—Ventris spoke most modern European languages fluently and could learn a new one in a matter of weeks. He seemed a most unlikely candidate for solving this vexing puzzle, except that he had three qualities that others lacked. He was clearly a genius, he had a dogged determination to solve the mystery of Linear B that bordered on obsession, and he had an inheritance that allowed him to ignore his architecture career in favor of his hobby.

Ventris learned of Linear B at age 14, when he attended an exhibit of Greek and Minoan antiquities. Arthur Evans happened to be present and gave the boys an impromptu lecture on the Minoan civilization and the mysterious Linear B writing. Ventris was hooked.

He published his first scholarly article on Linear B in 1940, when he was just 18 years old. In the paper, he rejected Evans’s Minoan language hypothesis, opting instead for a conclusion that the language was actually an early form of Etruscan. Ventris would believe this hypothesis to be correct right up until he made his breakthrough in decipherment in 1953.

Robinson’s book focuses on Ventris’s methods. It is these methods, and his genius, that enabled Ventris to succeed where so many others had failed. The fact that he was not a practicing academic probably worked to his advantage. He did not attempt to hoard his findings, rather he was very open in sharing his work. Throughout the late-40s and early-50s, he privately circulated twenty different versions of his notes with other scholars working in the field. He seemingly had no ego to boost, nor a professional reputation to gain and maintain.

Unlike scholars like Evans, Ventris did not maintain his hypotheses in the face of mounting evidence against them. While he firmly believed that the language was in fact Etruscan, he willingly abandoned that belief when no longer stood up against the weight of evidence. Whether this was due to lack of confidence from his lack of formal credentials, or whether Ventris was just a man without ego doesn’t matter. He had that rare quality possessed of great scholars—the willingness to be proven wrong.

Ventris’s decipherment was largely his own work. He did, however, rely upon the work of a few others with whom he communicated. He worked especially closely with fellow Englishman John Chadwick and he relied on methods developed by American Alice Kober. (Kober disliked Ventris and considered him a dilettante. She refused to answer his queries, but Ventris gained much of his basic methodology from Kober’s published work.) Chadwick was especially helpful. In addition to being a professor of philology at Oxford, he had also worked as a cryptographer at Bletchley Park during the war. He provided a philological framework for Ventris’s work as well as helpful decoding techniques. Ventris knew all the scholars working in the field and communicated with them all, but in the end, it was he alone who cracked the code.

In the two breakthrough months of May and June 1953, Ventris deciphered the script. He determined that it was indeed an early form of Greek. Kober had identified several three-character words, or triplets, in the Knossos tablets as being of interest. The triplets were absent from the mainland tablets found at Pylos and Ventris made the intuitive leap that these were place names on Crete. Even though he still firmly believed the language to be Etruscan, for the sake of experiment he assumed the language was Greek and using the phonetic values of the some similar characters in the Cypriot script, Ventris tentatively identified the triplets as the names of towns on Crete. From there he began working out the phonetic values of the other characters. He worked out the spelling and grammatical rules that differentiated it from Classical Greek—the final S, for instance, is a later development in the language. In the process he realized that his Etruscan hypothesis had to be wrong and the language was Greek, albeit a much earlier form than had previously been discovered.

One might ask, so what? It seems to be an interesting intellectual achievement—on the par with calculating pi to the nth place, but knowledge of the contents of Minoan storerooms can’t be of great value. Nothing could be more wrong. Ventris’s decipherment revolutionized the historical view of the ancient Mediterranean world. Previously, it had been thought that the Minoans were a separate civilization, predating the Hellenic culture. Ventris conclusively demonstrated that in fact they were Greeks, and that Hellenic civilization was far older than had been thought. Also, the fact that the language was Greek has given historical linguists a wealth of data on language evolution and change. Once Ventris made his breakthrough, there was a continuous line of evolution of the Greek language stretching back some 3,450 years.

Robinson’s book can be a bit dry. He painstakingly describes the process that Ventris used to decipher the script and that is not for everyone. Only those with a real interest in linguistics or cryptography will find great interest within, which is not to say that the book requires formal training to be understood. To the contrary, Robinson writes quite clearly for the lay audience. It’s just that there probably aren’t that many that will be interested enough to wade into the material.

And unfortunately, the book is not relieved by interesting details of Ventris’s life. He led a quite ordinary, suburban English lifestyle. Other than the war years, when he was an RAF navigator, he had little excitement or daring in his life. The only thing different about him was his passions for ancient scripts and skiing (not a common hobby in England of the 1940s and 50s). Ventris died in an automobile accident in 1956, at the age of thirty-four.

But for those who do find such linguistic details interesting or are looking for insight into genius and how the mind works, Robinson’s book is well worth reading. A shorter account of Ventris’s discovery can also be found in Simon Singh’s The Code Book (Doubleday, 1999). Singh’s book is primarily about codes and cryptography, but he devotes half a chapter to Ventris and the decipherment of Linear B.

Hardcover, 176 pages, Thames & Hudson; ISBN: 0500510776, June 2002.