The hardest part, though, lies in recording precisely in what ways a book has survived the ravages of time. An entire lexicon of book-related terminology has evolved over hundreds of years for exactly this purpose - terminology that means absolutely nothing to the average observer. It's traditional to adopt this baroque language when describing your books, for two reasons. The first is that the specific language of the book trade allows you to be exceedingly accurate and precise without using hundreds of words, and the second is that the elegance of it serves to dull the blow a little. Most rare books come with some minor defects, but that doesn't mean one has to be rude about it. It's much more charming to describe a book as "foxed" than to tell someone that the pages have developed an unsightly mottling, and that if this were a zombie movie we'd already have taken it out back and put it out of its misery.
- Oliver Darkshire, Once Upon a Tome, pp.25-26
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