footnotes

1. The footnote was, in the medieval manuscript tradition, originally a gloss: a small commentary written between or beside the lines of the main text. As the printed book displaced the manuscript, the gloss migrated downward, becoming the foot-note proper. Some long footnotes — see particularly ugfatiglem — became longer than the main text they ostensibly served, and now stand as the work.
2. The footnote is one of the few literary forms which can interrupt itself with a footnote.^2.1
3. The marginal note (or marginalium) is the footnote's older cousin. It lives in the margin, beside the text rather than beneath it. The marginal note is often unsigned. See marginalia.
4. The errata slip, traditionally inserted between the title page and the table of contents, is a sheet of paper acknowledging the printer's mistakes. The errata slip is itself sometimes corrected by a second errata slip. See error for a longer treatment.
5. The colophon, at the very end of the book, lists who set the type, who bound the book, in which town, and (sometimes) on what paper. The colophon is the only part of the book that names the people who made it. See colophon.
6. The page number is a paratext. The chapter heading is a paratext. The running header at the top of each page is a paratext. The blurb on the back cover is a paratext. The print run, the typeface, the binding, the smell of the paper, the previous owner's bookplate — these are paratexts. The body of the text is not necessarily where the meaning is. This footnote, also, is a paratext.
7. noemata.net consists almost entirely of paratext. directory names, file extensions, error messages, file dates, the order of folders in a listing — these are arranged as the work. The reader who insists on a "central argument" will not find one and may be uncertain whether they have read anything. They have. The paratext was the reading.