A zeta in the margin

 One more thing I learned from Jamie Kreiner’s The Wandering Mind: Medieval monks used the Greek letter zeta in the margin as shorthand for “Look it up!”

I’ve already confessed to this: I write in the margins of my books.

I would not dream of writing in yours, or in library books, which we own together. But I use my own books much as the medieval monks that Dr. Kreiner writes about used theirs.

I leave notes in the margins that help me see the logic of a book’s main arguments more clearly. 

I also use Greek letters:

• Lambda marks a word (logos) I want to look up or study.

• Theta marks a paragraph that makes a theme or an argument (thema) that’s central to the point of the book.

• Several letters and dingbats mark a quotation that should end up in a notebook.

Now there will be zetas.

• Sources: Jamie Kreiner, The Wandering Mind; New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 2023. For the truly curious: See “A note in the margin,” Nov. 12, 2022, and “And also a symbol,” Nov. 13, 2022.