From "Stem" to "Stern"

       I'm a speech person because I consider speech the source of language but I'll grant that visual symbols helped regularize speech and make it more widely accessible.  Those who favor words on a page or a screen, though, will have to grant that sometimes these visual entities get us screwed up.

       One of my favorites is how, especially in some fonts, the "m" and "n" and "r" can cohabit with one another in less than communicative ways:  the actress Laura Dern can change before your eyes into Laura Dem.  And the front and back end of a boat can both be the same, in the phrase "from stem to stern."

      Yes, the spoken word can mumble and jumble and hem and haw, but the printed word has its  special vulnerabilities.  And I shall never be happy with a front page story making me turn multiple pages to get to the rest of a single word that has been broken off in its middle while the thought that is an intelligible sentence evaporates!