Jo

When I read a modern edition of an old book, that has annotations glossing the especially archaic words, I like it if the words, or the line in question, have a little symbol saying that the word is glossed. You know, like a footnote superscript, or a little circle, or an asterisk or something.

I cannot fathom how anyone would prefer otherwise. 

Some people say that such symbols break their immersion in the text. You know what ELSE breaks immersion? Having to check the bottom of the page with every single word to see if it's glossed or not! 

And don't say that I can check only the words I don't understand, because you never know whether a given word has significantly changed its meaning over time!

WHAT is going on in the heads of people who say that looking away from the page with ever verb and noun DOES NOT break immersion in the text, and the mere presence of an asterisk DOES?

So that is why I own the Norton edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and the Kastan edition of Paradise Lost, and no other versions. @£$% Oxford and Arden and Folger editions of Shakespeare.