Erin McKean makes the point in a TED talk that, unlike paper dictionaries, online dictionary searches do not provide serendipity: finding something you didn’t know you were looking for.

I take this many ways:

True, but…

How many people regularly flip a dictionary?

How exact is search?

How many people just type the word into Google (which, because internet search sucks, is quite serendipitous).

(via Daring Fireball