As humans seeking to know, then understand, then communicate, we are all bound by the language we know. Our language is our always-personal set of metaphors which we grasp at, and sometimes are successful in doing so, in order to describe whatever-it-is that we are perceiving that we need to share. Often, we feel frustrated in being able to convey the depths of meaning, or wonder, or urgency about a particular subject because we don’t have the words we want in the repertoire  of words we know. We feel sometimes like the painter who wants to paint a wildflower field, but has only her fingertips and must smear a wildflower field instead. Some things demand a precision in description beyond the impressionistic display of colors.

"And the German will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us. And the Germans will talk about us. And the Germans will fear us. And when the Germans close their eyes at night, and their subconscious tortures them for the evil they’ve done, it will be with thoughts of us that it tortures them with." Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), Inglourious Basterds

Marginalia (plurale tantum) is the general term for notes, scribbles, and editorial comments made in the margin of a book. The term is also used to describe drawings and flourishes in medieval illuminated manuscripts. True marginalia is not to be confused with reader's signs, marks in books. The formal way is called annotation.

Marginalia can add or detract from the value of a book, depending on the author of the marginalia and the book. Marginalia by Tony Blair in a book by Winston Churchill, for example, might add value; a student's notes in a popular edition of Oliver Twist might not.

Scientists[who?] doing research on the future of the user interface have studied the phenomenon of user annotation of texts. They discovered that in several university departments, knowledgeable students would scour the piles of textbooks at used book dealers for consistently annotated copies.[citation needed] The students had a good appreciation for their predecessors' distillation of knowledge.

In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways in which today's print dictionary is poised for transformation in this internet era.

Erin McKean really likes dictionaries.