That “a” has picked up a lot of ink. Is it so very surprising that the ink spread over the imaginary line? Look at how the “a” and “n” in the same word are joined. It’s the same thing: too much ink on an absorbent surface like paper. Nothing fancy or modern or highly technical required.
I remember something that’s appropos; maybe someone mentioned it. Manual or Selectric/electric, the letters on the typewriter would get gunked up, like ones with closed loops, a, e, o, etc. I remember using a pin to clean them out, also think there might have been a solvent. That might explain some of the messy letters along with scanning artifacts.