Word Garden
In the neighboring quadrant, closing consonants continue to ascend the sonority scale as we move from left to right. Nasal sounds, in green, are often perceived as fused with the vowels they follow. L and R sounds are so vowellike they tend to wreak havoc on both sound and spelling. Because this is the territory of short vowel sounds, the final column of words ending in open vowels is mostly barren. We’ll see a very different pattern when we get to the long vowels.
I want to acknowledge the obvious: a spreadsheet in matrix format would have some advantages over this paper garden gizmo. It could be loaded with drop-down lists, filters, and formulas to tabulate data and display it different ways. It would certainly be easier to share and reproduce.
But there's also power in turning pages. I think the Word Garden has potential as a classroom tool, one that unfolds in real space, inviting annotation and exploration. It seems apt that the garden we are sowing is a field of books.