"Kerning" is the art of spacing letters so that the finished words are visually balanced and easy to read. It's more than just consistent spacing, because letters are shaped differently, and some should be closer to the next letter than others. Bad kerning gives us the word "keming," which is gloriously self-explanatory.
Pope Francis lived humbly for a pope, and requested that his tombstone be engraved simply with his name. He was laid to rest on Saturday at the St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome, and the tomb has a stone with his name, Franciscus, spelled FRANCISCVS in the Latin style. But the stone reads more like “F R A NCISC VS.”
Some have argued that the bad kerning is a symbol of humility before God, but there is no tradition of such a gesture in papal tombstones. It may have been because the stone carving was a rush job, or possibly incompetence. Fast Company has a possible explanation of how the poor design could have occurred. -via kottke