Stammering

Do thou what's straight still crooked deem; Thy greatest art still stupid seem, And eloquence a stammering scream.

Then I, with stammering accents, intercede, / and, sore perplext, these broken words outthrow / to calm her transport:

I was stammering.

Antonio was stammering in fear.

We could not understand his inarticulate stammerings.

At that point, humanity crosses another threshold, miniaturizes its universe into symbolic form, and takes a toddling step toward iconography, writing, and the first stammerings of calendrical notation and mathematics.