Double italics

[Guy Barry]

I wrote in another thread:

"... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
applies that text originally
italicized, when part of a section of text itself being italicized,
appears in roman."

As this is probably one of the most convoluted sentences I've ever had
the misfortune to put together, let me explain more simply. In what
follows, the convention is that italics are represented by a pair of
matching underscores (e.g. "I _really_ hate this" indicates that
"really" is in italics).

Suppose I'm quoting a sentence like the following (taken at random
from Burchfield): "Under this term are included the possessive
pronouns _hers_, _his_, _its_, _ours_, _theirs_, and _yours_, and also
(except in the archaic adjectival use, as _mine/thine eyes_) _mine_
and _thine_." And suppose that I'm using a style where quoted text is
put in italics. Conventionally, the quoted form would appear as
follows:

_Under this term are included the possessive pronouns_ hers, his, its,
ours, theirs, _and_ yours, _and also (except in the archaic adjectival
use, as_ mine/thine eyes_)_ mine _and_ thine.

To clarify further, the words "hers", "his", "its", "ours", "theirs",
"yours", "mine/thine eyes", "mine" and "thine" would appear in exactly
the same typeface as the surrounding text, the convention being that
two italicizations cancel each other out. I hope I've conveyed this
adequately in ASCII.

Is this really the clearest way of doing things? Wouldn't it be
better to use boldface (or some other typeface) to indicate a double
italicization?

--
Guy Barry

[Mark Brader]

Guy Barry:

> I wrote in another thread:
>
> "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
> applies that text originally italicized, when part of a section of
> text itself being italicized, appears in roman."
>
> As this is probably one of the most convoluted sentences I've ever had

> the misfortune to put together...

Sticking the main verb in the middle of the subject certainly doesn't
help.

> let me explain more simply.

Your point was clear enough.

> And suppose that I'm using a style where quoted text is put in italics.
> Conventionally, the quoted form would appear as follows:
>
> _Under this term are included the possessive pronouns_ hers, his, its,
> ours, theirs, _and_ yours, _and also (except in the archaic adjectival
> use, as_ mine/thine eyes_)_ mine _and_ thine.

> ...the convention being that two italicizations cancel each other out.

True.

> Is this really the clearest way of doing things?

No.

> Wouldn't it be better to use boldface (or some other typeface) to
> indicate a double italicization?

No, because that's nonstandard. It would be better to change your
typographical style to use an alternative to italics for one of the
two purposes. For example, either

_Under this term are included the possessive pronouns "hers", "his", "its",
"ours", "theirs", and "yours", and also (except in the archaic adjectival
use, as "mine/thine eyes") "mine" and "thine"._

[adjusting punctuation placement with the closing quotes according
to the desired style, of course]

or

"Under this term are included the possessive pronouns _hers_, _his_, _its_,
_ours_, _theirs_, and _yours_, and also (except in the archaic adjectival
use, as _mine/thine eyes_) _mine_ and _thine_."

or use an indented block quotation; or use boldface instead of italics
for the words that are being mentioned rather than used (like "hers");
or use some alternative font for quotations. In the last two cases the
bold/italic transformation for the mentioned words can be applied on top
of that.
--
Mark Brader "The design of the lowercase e in text faces
Toronto produces strong feelings (or should do so)."
m...@vex.net -- Walter Tracy

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[semir...@my-deja.com]

On Thursday, 12 July 2012 16:04:01 UTC+1, Guy Barry wrote:
> I wrote in another thread:
>

> "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention

> applies that text originally
> italicized, when part of a section of text itself being italicized,

> appears in roman."
>
> As this is probably one of the most convoluted sentences I've ever had

> the misfortune to put together, let me explain more simply. In what
> follows, the convention is that italics are represented by a pair of

> matching underscores (e.g. "I _really_ hate this" indicates that
> "really" is in italics).
>
> Suppose I'm quoting a sentence like the following (taken at random
> from Burchfield): "Under this term are included the possessive

> pronouns _hers_, _his_, _its_, _ours_, _theirs_, and _yours_, and also
> (except in the archaic adjectival use, as _mine/thine eyes_) _mine_

> and _thine_." And suppose that I'm using a style where quoted text is

> put in italics. Conventionally, the quoted form would appear as
> follows:
>
> _Under this term are included the possessive pronouns_ hers, his, its,
> ours, theirs, _and_ yours, _and also (except in the archaic adjectival
> use, as_ mine/thine eyes_)_ mine _and_ thine.
>

> To clarify further, the words "hers", "his", "its", "ours", "theirs",
> "yours", "mine/thine eyes", "mine" and "thine" would appear in exactly

> the same typeface as the surrounding text, the convention being that

> two italicizations cancel each other out. I hope I've conveyed this
> adequately in ASCII.
>
> Is this really the clearest way of doing things? Wouldn't it be

> better to use boldface (or some other typeface) to indicate a double
> italicization?
>
> --
> Guy Barry

Is this a send-up?

You have two typefaces. To show things up
you use the other one.

Far easier to to than to explain why
it is difficult to do.

Whassaproblem?

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 12, 4:36 pm, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
> Guy Barry:
>
> > I wrote in another thread:
>
> > "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
> > applies that text originally italicized, when part of a section of
> > text itself being italicized, appears in roman."
>
> > As this is probably one of the most convoluted sentences I've ever had
> > the misfortune to put together...
>
> Sticking the main verb in the middle of the subject certainly doesn't
> help.

Oh for heaven's sake. I know this is nothing to do with the thread,
but do you really have to hang on to this insane idea that one should
never split a noun from its modifying relative clause?

"... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention that

text originally italicized, when part of a section of

text itself being italicized, appears in roman, applies."

Yup, sure. About a thousand times clearer, don't you think?

If I hadn't been able to use that construction, I'd probably have
given up on the sentence entirely. (I wish I had done now.)

--
Guy Barry

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 12, 4:48 pm, Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> Oh for heaven's sake.  I know this is nothing to do with the thread,
> but do you really have to hang on to this insane idea that one should
> never split a noun from its modifying relative clause?

And before someone takes me to task on this, it's not a relative
clause, it's a "that"-clause. But the point still stands.

--
Guy Barry

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 12, 4:42 pm, semireti...@my-deja.com wrote:

> Is this a send-up?

No.

> You have two typefaces. To show things up
> you use the other one.
>
> Far easier to to than to explain why
> it is difficult to do.
>
> Whassaproblem?

The problem is that doubly italicized text appears in the same
typeface as surrounding text. This was the original citation (from
Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage):

"The case before us is the converse scenario of _Klessig_; _unlike_
Klessig [read _unlike in_ Klessig], Imani did not proceed to trial
without counsel."

It took me some time to realize that the phrase being quoted was
"unlike _Klessig_". In legal usage, italics refer to a case; but
Garner had italicized the phrase in order to draw attention to it, so
"Klessig" appeared in roman. Which led me to ask what was wrong with
"unlike Klessig".

A rather obscure difficulty, I admit; but it led me to wonder whether
the convention that two italicizations cancel is always a sensible
one.

--
Guy Barry

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

The problem seems to be that there are three categories of text but only
two typefaces with which to differentiate them.

I'll illustrate what I understand to be the problem using lower and
upper case text. Normal text will be in all LC and quoted text in all
UC.

under this term are included the possessive pronouns HERS, HIS, ITS,
OURS, THEIRS, and YOURS, and also (except in the archaic adjectival
use, as MINE/THINE EYES) MINE and THINE.

The problem arises when the whole of that is quoted as in:

suppose I'm quoting a sentence like the following (taken at random
from burchfield): UNDER THIS TERM ARE INCLUDED THE POSSESSIVE
PRONOUNS hers, his, its, ours, theirs, AND yours, AND ALSO
(EXCEPT IN THE ARCHAIC ADJECTIVAL USE, AS mine/thine eyes) mine
AND thine

The words "suppose I'm quoting..." are non-quoted text in the above.
The words "UNDER THIS TERM ARE INCLUDED" are quoted text in the above.
The words "hers, his, its, ours, theirs" are quoted text within quoted
text in the above *but have the appearance of non-quoted text*, which is
the problem.

Writing it as:

suppose I'm quoting a sentence like the following (taken at random
from burchfield): UNDER THIS TERM ARE INCLUDED THE POSSESSIVE
PRONOUNS HERS, HIS, ITS, OURS, THEIRS, AND YOURS, AND ALSO
(EXCEPT IN THE ARCHAIC ADJECTIVAL USE, AS MINE/THINE EYES) MINE
AND THINE

distinguishes the quoted from the non-quoted text by loses the
distinction between the quoted text and the quoted text within the
quoted text.

This is, of course, handled easily when quotation marks are used, by
alternating between single and double marks.

Suppose I'm quoting a sentence like the following (taken at random
from Burchfield): 'Under this term are included the possessive

pronouns "hers", "his", "its", "ours", "theirs", and "yours", and also
(except in the archaic adjectival use, as "mine/thine eyes") "mine"

and "thine"'.


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Whiskers]

I think this is a typesetting problem rather than a grammatical one;
someone has chosen to use italics-as-emphasis in a technical document
that also makes use of a convention that italics-indicates-a-legal-case.

That's a bad choice.

If the document is in a typeset magazine or newspaper, the printer
should have more than two typefaces to choose from; eg the emphasis
could be shown by using bold and bold-italic variants of the face used
for the rest of the text.

In handwriting and simple typewriting, I would suggest that
italics-indicates-a-legal-case should be replaced by putting the
case-name inside quotes, or perhaps inside [square brackets] or {curly
brackets}; emphasis by using underlining or 'double-strike' typing
would thus be unambiguous.

The usual convention for emphasis in usenet is to use /italic/ *bold*
and _underline_; some newsreaders will attempt to parse those
indicators to display an appropriate typeface, or at least use a
different colour or brightness for the emphasised words. One side
effect of this convention is that //double italics// can be indicated
unambiguously. <grin>

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Mark Brader]

Guy Barry:
>>> I wrote in another thread:
>>
>>> "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
>>> applies that text originally italicized, when part of a section of
>>> text itself being italicized, appears in roman."
>>
>>> As this is probably one of the most convoluted sentences I've ever had
>>> the misfortune to put together...

Mark Brader:

>> Sticking the main verb in the middle of the subject certainly doesn't
>> help.

Guy Barry:

> Oh for heaven's sake. I know this is nothing to do with the thread,
> but do you really have to hang on to this insane idea that one should

> never split a noun from its modifying... clause?

Well, even if you accept it as grammatical, it certainly adds to the
convolution.

> "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention that
> text originally italicized, when part of a section of
> text itself being italicized, appears in roman, applies."
>
> Yup, sure. About a thousand times clearer, don't you think?

Not really, not this time. But if you'd said something like

"... but what confuses things further is ..."

you wouldn't've needed to make either choice.
--
Mark Brader | "This was followed by a vocal response which
Toronto | would now be reserved for kicking a ball in a net."
m...@vex.net | --Derrick Beckett

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <slrnjvuabb.l...@ID-107770.user.individual.net>,

Whiskers <catwh...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:

>I think this is a typesetting problem rather than a grammatical one;
>someone has chosen to use italics-as-emphasis in a technical document
>that also makes use of a convention that italics-indicates-a-legal-case.

In legal writing, both of these are generally mandatory (except in
obsolete styles intended for typewriters that require underlining
rather than italics), but emphasis is rarely used. See, for example,
<http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf> for a
recent court opinion which shows various conventionalized uses of
italics, for references to cases, for certain Latin abbreviations,
foreign-language phrases, and for boilerplate. On page 15 of the
Ginsburg opinion (page 80 of the PDF as a whole), you can see an
example where italics have been used for emphasis.

-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[Mark Brader]

Peter Duncanson:
> The problem seems to be that there are three categories of text but...

Four; the fourth one just happens not to occur in the example.
There are two independent attributes, each with two values.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "I said to myself, 'You're crazier than I am
m...@vex.net | if you believe that.'" --overheard

[Don Phillipson]

"Guy Barry" <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0a6c45b2-6c64-4be7...@a16g2000vby.googlegroups.com...

> A rather obscure difficulty, I admit; but it led me to wonder whether
> the convention that two italicizations cancel is always a sensible one.

Where is this convention found? The Chicago Manual of Style handles
your problem otherwise.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Whiskers]

On 2012-07-12, Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
> In article <slrnjvuabb.l...@ID-107770.user.individual.net>,
> Whiskers <catwh...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I think this is a typesetting problem rather than a grammatical one;
>>someone has chosen to use italics-as-emphasis in a technical document
>>that also makes use of a convention that italics-indicates-a-legal-case.
>
> In legal writing, both of these are generally mandatory (except in
> obsolete styles intended for typewriters that require underlining
> rather than italics), but emphasis is rarely used.

Mandatory?

> See, for example,
> <http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf> for a
> recent court opinion which shows various conventionalized uses of
> italics, for references to cases, for certain Latin abbreviations,
> foreign-language phrases, and for boilerplate. On page 15 of the
> Ginsburg opinion (page 80 of the PDF as a whole), you can see an
> example where italics have been used for emphasis.
>
> -GAWollman

You mean this bit?

See
also /Wickard,/ 317 U. S., at 125 (“[E]ven if appellee’s activ-
ity be local and though it may not be regarded as com-
merce, it may still, /whatever its nature/, be reached by
Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on
interstate commerce.” (emphasis added)); /Jones & Laugh-
lin Steel Corp.,/ 301 U. S., at 37.

There doesn't seem to be any need for double-italics there; none of the
cases named fall within an italics-for-emphasis passage. One might
even suspect that it was composed carefully so as to avoid such a
conflict.

Does that document contain any examples of a passage in
italics-for-emphasis which contains the name of a case?

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <slrnk00c1n.m...@ID-107770.user.individual.net>,

Whiskers <catwh...@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
>There doesn't seem to be any need for double-italics there; none of the
>cases named fall within an italics-for-emphasis passage. One might
>even suspect that it was composed carefully so as to avoid such a
>conflict.
>
>Does that document contain any examples of a passage in
>italics-for-emphasis which contains the name of a case?

No, emphasis is used so sparingly that I doubt you'd see it. It's
perhaps more likely in a dissent, since dissents tend to be more
strongly worded than other sorts of legal documents. I just picked a
notable recent case off the list; if you went looking for a dissent
that referenced /Chevron/ deference or /Miranda/ warnings, maybe you'd
find something.

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 13, 12:05 am, "Don Phillipson" <e...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
> "Guy Barry" <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message

>
> news:0a6c45b2-6c64-4be7...@a16g2000vby.googlegroups.com...
>
> > A rather obscure difficulty, I admit; but it led me to wonder whether
> > the convention that two italicizations cancel is always a sensible one.
>
> Where is this convention found?  The Chicago Manual of Style handles
> your problem otherwise.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know. It's something that I've
inferred from many years of reading reference books, and it's by no
means obvious to the uninitiated.

Wikipedia states (in section 4.2.2 of "italics"):

"If something within a run of italics needs to be italicized itself,
the type is normally switched back to non-italicized (roman) type: '_I
think_ The Scarlet Letter _had a chapter about that_, thought Mary'.
In this example, the title ('_The Scarlet Letter_') is within an
italicized thought process and therefore this title is non-italicized.
It is followed by the main narrative that is outside both. It is also
non-italicized and therefore not obviously separated from the former.
The reader must find additional criteria to distinguish between these.
Here, apart from using the attribute of italic–non-italic styles, the
title also employs the attribute of capitalization. Citation styles in
which book titles are italicized differ on how to deal with a book
title within a book title; for example, MLA style specifies a switch
back to roman type, whereas _The Chicago Manual of Style_ (8.184)
specifies the use of quotation marks (_A Key to Whitehead’s 'Process
and Reality'_)."

[Actually the article had double quote marks around "Process and
Reality", but I've followed the usual convention of changing them to
single quote marks within quoted text. Tricky stuff, this.]

What are considered to be the authoritative sources on typography?
It's not an area I've studied in detail.

--
Guy Barry

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 12, 8:45 pm, Whiskers <catwhee...@operamail.com> wrote:

> The usual convention for emphasis in usenet is to use /italic/ *bold*
> and _underline_

Is it? I wasn't aware that the symbols corresponded directly to
typefaces in that fashion. I normally use the paired asterisks when I
want to emphasize something, but I've always seen them as a specific
Usenet convention, rather than the equivalent of boldface. I've
always assumed that the paired underscores correspond to underlining
in manuscript or typescript, which would be the equivalent of italics
in print. I don't think I've ever used the paired slashes (except on
this group to indicate ASCII IPA).

--
Guy Barry

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Guy Barry <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:

> I wrote in another thread:
>
> "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
> applies that text originally
> italicized, when part of a section of text itself being italicized,
> appears in roman."

Seemed perfectly clear to me. (It's an annoying convention -- but not
one there's an obvious better choice for, so I live with it.)

> As this is probably one of the most convoluted sentences I've ever had
> the misfortune to put together, let me explain more simply. In what
> follows, the convention is that italics are represented by a pair of
> matching underscores (e.g. "I _really_ hate this" indicates that
> "really" is in italics).
>
> Suppose I'm quoting a sentence like the following (taken at random
> from Burchfield): "Under this term are included the possessive
> pronouns _hers_, _his_, _its_, _ours_, _theirs_, and _yours_, and also
> (except in the archaic adjectival use, as _mine/thine eyes_) _mine_
> and _thine_." And suppose that I'm using a style where quoted text is
> put in italics. Conventionally, the quoted form would appear as
> follows:
>
> _Under this term are included the possessive pronouns_ hers, his, its,
> ours, theirs, _and_ yours, _and also (except in the archaic adjectival
> use, as_ mine/thine eyes_)_ mine _and_ thine.

As a computer nerd, the letter of the law would italicize those commas
in that list of possessive pronouns. I have no idea if a real
typographer would.

> To clarify further, the words "hers", "his", "its", "ours", "theirs",
> "yours", "mine/thine eyes", "mine" and "thine" would appear in exactly
> the same typeface as the surrounding text, the convention being that
> two italicizations cancel each other out. I hope I've conveyed this
> adequately in ASCII.
>
> Is this really the clearest way of doing things? Wouldn't it be
> better to use boldface (or some other typeface) to indicate a double
> italicization?

I, too, find this convention somewhat confusing sometimes.

The problem is, every available typographic trick is already in use.
Thus, if you say "I'll do double italics as bold", what do you do if
there's already a word bolded in the span you're italicizing?

And it doesn't come up often enough to have required any drastic actions
to straighten things out.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Guy Barry <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:

> On Jul 13, 12:05 am, "Don Phillipson" <e...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
>> "Guy Barry" <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
>>
>> news:0a6c45b2-6c64-4be7...@a16g2000vby.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > A rather obscure difficulty, I admit; but it led me to wonder whether
>> > the convention that two italicizations cancel is always a sensible one.
>>
>> Where is this convention found?  The Chicago Manual of Style handles
>> your problem otherwise.
>
> To be perfectly honest, I don't know. It's something that I've
> inferred from many years of reading reference books, and it's by no
> means obvious to the uninitiated.

It also occurs frequently in fantasy or SF stories where, for example,
the author is using italics to indicate telepathic communication or
something, while still using them for emphasis in the normal fashion.
The convention is the same.

[Peter Moylan]

On 14/07/12 13:23, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

> As a computer nerd, the letter of the law would italicize those commas
> in that list of possessive pronouns. I have no idea if a real
> typographer would.

Oy!

The letter of the law might sometimes look like a computer nerd, but I
don't think it is.

--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 14, 4:23 am, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:

> Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
> > I wrote in another thread:
>
> > "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
> > applies that text originally
> > italicized, when part of a section of text itself being italicized,
> > appears in roman."
>
> Seemed perfectly clear to me.  (It's an annoying convention -- but not
> one there's an obvious better choice for, so I live with it.)

It was a bugger to write though. I should have just written "two
italicizations cancel" and had done with it.

> > _Under this term are included the possessive pronouns_ hers, his, its,
> > ours, theirs, _and_ yours, _and also (except in the archaic adjectival
> > use, as_ mine/thine eyes_)_ mine _and_ thine.
>
> As a computer nerd, the letter of the law would italicize those commas
> in that list of possessive pronouns. I have no idea if a real
> typographer would.

Yes, and to be absolutely consistent I should have put a pair of
underscores round each comma, but I thought that it would look *so*
fussy that it was likely to obscure what I meant. There's not much
difference between a comma in roman and one in italic that I can see
anyway. (Is there any difference between full stops?)

> The problem is, every available typographic trick is already in use.
> Thus, if you say "I'll do double italics as bold", what do you do if
> there's already a word bolded in the span you're italicizing?

In these days of computer typesetting, the number of different fonts
and typefaces available is almost limitless. If you want to make a
word stand out in a serifed font, you can put it in a sans-serif
font. This is traditionally supposed to be bad typographic practice
(I believe) but I can't see anything wrong with it as long as it's
used sparingly.

> And it doesn't come up often enough to have required any drastic actions
> to straighten things out.

It's been a minor irritant of mine for quite some time. For one
thing, it's never explained anywhere. For another, it can lead to
ambiguity, or at least a lack of clarity. Here are two contrasting
examples from Burchfield, quoted as written:

The type is shown in _he was rolling up his sleeves preparatory_ (not
_preparatorily_) _to punching the other boy_.
_Nobody can predict with confidence how much time may_ not _be
employed on the concluding stages of the Bill_ (omit _not_).

In the first example, "not" is in roman because it's part of the main
text. But in the second, the first "not" is in roman presumably
because Burchfield wanted to emphasize it, whereas "omit" is in roman
because it's part of the main text. Even if the context makes the
distinction clear, you've got to admit that it's pretty untidy..

Incidentally, should the convention even apply in the second example?
I assume that "not" wasn't italicized in the original text, and that
Burchfield added the emphasis to draw attention to the grammatical
error. That's different from quoting something that was originally in
italics, although I'm not sure how one is supposed to make the
distinction clear apart from writing "my emphasis".

--
Guy Barry

[R H Draney]

Peter Moylan filted:

>
>On 14/07/12 13:23, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>
>> As a computer nerd, the letter of the law would italicize those commas
>> in that list of possessive pronouns. I have no idea if a real
>> typographer would.
>
>Oy!
>
>The letter of the law might sometimes look like a computer nerd, but I
>don't think it is.

Many computer nerds may let the law...David is referring to only one such....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[Dr Nick]

In my newsreader, Whiskers' words were actually displayed in italics,
bold and underlined respectively.

[Whiskers]

On 2012-07-13, Guy Barry <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

It was a well established convention long before I started using usenet
about 12 years ago, and was one of the first things I was taught by
other posters. Various "netiquette" guides mention it, eg
<http://linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php> in section 1 "Don't
Shout".

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jul 13, 1:18 pm, Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
...

> I've
> always assumed that the paired underscores correspond to underlining
> in manuscript or typescript, which would be the equivalent of italics
> in print.  I don't think I've ever used the paired slashes (except on
> this group to indicate ASCII IPA).

Actually, I used it for the title /Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage/
in the very post that had the double italics.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/browse_frm/thread/e4ec728fc3b1c4c3/3f02683f5ccb6ad0

Evan Kirshenbaum doesn't like people to do this because he reads
what's between slashes as ASCII-IPA. I do it anyway, apologetically,
because the people who it works for outnumber him. I don't do it when
threads are crossposted to sci.lang because lots of people there
object.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 14, 1:54 pm, Whiskers <catwhee...@operamail.com> wrote:
> On 2012-07-13, Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>
> > On Jul 12, 8:45 pm, Whiskers <catwhee...@operamail.com> wrote:
>
> >> The usual convention for emphasis in usenet is to use /italic/ *bold*
> >> and _underline_
>
> > Is it?  I wasn't aware that the symbols corresponded directly to
> > typefaces in that fashion.  I normally use the paired asterisks when I
> > want to emphasize something, but I've always seen them as a specific
> > Usenet convention, rather than the equivalent of boldface.  I've
> > always assumed that the paired underscores correspond to underlining
> > in manuscript or typescript, which would be the equivalent of italics
> > in print.  I don't think I've ever used the paired slashes (except on
> > this group to indicate ASCII IPA).
>
> It was a well established convention long before I started using usenet
> about 12 years ago, and was one of the first things I was taught by
> other posters.  Various "netiquette" guides mention it, eg
> <http://linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php> in section 1 "Don't
> Shout".

Well, you live and learn (and I've been on Usenet since 1990). I
don't think it's mentioned in news.announce.newusers, which is where
I'd expect to find such information. I generally use paired asterisks
for emphasis because that's what I've seen used by other posters, even
though I wouldn't use boldface in the printed equivalent. I
occasionally use underscores as the equivalent of italics used for a
purpose other than emphasis (e.g. foreign phrases). Otherwise I use
quote marks for book titles and the like. I hadn't even noticed the
paired-slashes convention as a notation for italics.

And some people on sci.lang use angle brackets ("<", ">") as a way of
quoting words and phrases. What are they meant to represent?

--
Guy Barry

[Jerry Friedman]

On Jul 14, 10:57 am, Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
...

> And some people on sci.lang use angle brackets ("<", ">") as a way of
> quoting words and phrases.  What are they meant to represent?

I think that means the written symbols. Graphemes, as they say.

--
Jerry Friedman could be wrong.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <a7aa523c-1446-465e...@q2g2000vbv.googlegroups.com>,

Guy Barry <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>And some people on sci.lang use angle brackets ("<", ">") as a way of
>quoting words and phrases. What are they meant to represent?

Angle brackets are used to indicate that you're talking about the
graphic (written) form of a word, as opposed to regular brackets []
for the phonetic transcription or slashes // for the phonemic
transcription.

In addition to their uses to mark italics and transcription, slashes
are also used to quote "regular expressions" (which in most uses
aren't actually regular, although the most commonly-used subset is).

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Guy Barry <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:

> On Jul 14, 4:23 am, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
>> > I wrote in another thread:
>>
>> > "... but, to confuse things further, the typographical convention
>> > applies that text originally
>> > italicized, when part of a section of text itself being italicized,
>> > appears in roman."
>>
>> Seemed perfectly clear to me.  (It's an annoying convention -- but not
>> one there's an obvious better choice for, so I live with it.)
>
> It was a bugger to write though. I should have just written "two
> italicizations cancel" and had done with it.

I'm not a good judge of clarity here, since this issue has also bothered
me a bit for years.

>> > _Under this term are included the possessive pronouns_ hers, his, its,
>> > ours, theirs, _and_ yours, _and also (except in the archaic adjectival
>> > use, as_ mine/thine eyes_)_ mine _and_ thine.
>>
>> As a computer nerd, the letter of the law would italicize those commas
>> in that list of possessive pronouns. I have no idea if a real
>> typographer would.
>
> Yes, and to be absolutely consistent I should have put a pair of
> underscores round each comma, but I thought that it would look *so*
> fussy that it was likely to obscure what I meant. There's not much
> difference between a comma in roman and one in italic that I can see
> anyway. (Is there any difference between full stops?)

Probably there isn't. The real answer, though, is that, in theory, the
italic and the bold and the roman are three different fonts, and each
character in each one is completely independent. The type designer can
do whatever they want.

>> The problem is, every available typographic trick is already in use.
>> Thus, if you say "I'll do double italics as bold", what do you do if
>> there's already a word bolded in the span you're italicizing?
>
> In these days of computer typesetting, the number of different fonts
> and typefaces available is almost limitless. If you want to make a
> word stand out in a serifed font, you can put it in a sans-serif
> font. This is traditionally supposed to be bad typographic practice
> (I believe) but I can't see anything wrong with it as long as it's
> used sparingly.

As a book-design question, yes, for any given set of instances, there's
some kind of invention that will make it all fairly clear.

But then you have to learn how it's done in each book.

>> And it doesn't come up often enough to have required any drastic actions
>> to straighten things out.
>
> It's been a minor irritant of mine for quite some time. For one
> thing, it's never explained anywhere. For another, it can lead to
> ambiguity, or at least a lack of clarity. Here are two contrasting
> examples from Burchfield, quoted as written:

I don't know where I learned it, other than by looking. To find sources
I'd look for books on typography in general and book design in
particular -- and ask publishing professionals where they learned about
it.

> The type is shown in _he was rolling up his sleeves preparatory_ (not
> _preparatorily_) _to punching the other boy_.
> _Nobody can predict with confidence how much time may_ not _be
> employed on the concluding stages of the Bill_ (omit _not_).
>
> In the first example, "not" is in roman because it's part of the main
> text. But in the second, the first "not" is in roman presumably
> because Burchfield wanted to emphasize it, whereas "omit" is in roman
> because it's part of the main text. Even if the context makes the
> distinction clear, you've got to admit that it's pretty untidy..
>
> Incidentally, should the convention even apply in the second example?
> I assume that "not" wasn't italicized in the original text, and that
> Burchfield added the emphasis to draw attention to the grammatical
> error. That's different from quoting something that was originally in
> italics, although I'm not sure how one is supposed to make the
> distinction clear apart from writing "my emphasis".

It's certainly all very untidy. Humans don't mind that so much,
though.

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 15, 1:52 am, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:

> > It was a bugger to write though.  I should have just written "two
> > italicizations cancel" and had done with it.
>
> I'm not a good judge of clarity here, since this issue has also bothered
> me a bit for years.

Here's a thought: for italics within italics, why not use underlined
italic? It's a standard feature in all fonts, it's not commonly used
for any other purpose, and the meaning would be readily understood.

--
Guy Barry

[R H Draney]

Guy Barry filted:

>
>On Jul 15, 1:52=A0am, David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> Guy Barry <guy.ba...@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:
>

>> > It was a bugger to write though. =A0I should have just written "two

>> > italicizations cancel" and had done with it.
>>
>> I'm not a good judge of clarity here, since this issue has also bothered
>> me a bit for years.
>
>Here's a thought: for italics within italics, why not use underlined
>italic? It's a standard feature in all fonts, it's not commonly used
>for any other purpose, and the meaning would be readily understood.

Underlining makes some people think it's a link, and they get incensed when they
try to click on it and nothing happens....r

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 16, 9:39 am, R H Draney <dadoc...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> Guy Barry filted:

> >Here's a thought: for italics within italics, why not use underlined
> >italic?  It's a standard feature in all fonts, it's not commonly used
> >for any other purpose, and the meaning would be readily understood.
>
> Underlining makes some people think it's a link, and they get incensed when they
> try to click on it and nothing happens....r

In print?

--
Guy Barry

[James Hogg]

Underlining in print is taboo among typographers.

--
James

[R H Draney]

James Hogg filted:

And those used to reading things online will try to click on it even in
print....r

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

If proposals for "Intelligent Paper" trun into tangible reality clicking
on it will work.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.28.6815&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Intelligent Paper
Marc Dymetman and Max Copperman
Xerox Research Centre Europe
6, chemin de Maupertuis
38240Meylan, France

....
An illustration is given in Fig. 1. The user is looking at a
papermap of Paris,
indicating such places of interest as the Louvre or the
Sacr´e-Coeur. She positions
the pointer over the Louvre, and clicks. The page-id is decoded by
the communication
infrastructure into a URL belonging to the publisher of the map.
it to realize
that the transmitted pointer-loc corresponds to the location of
certain marks on
the page, representing “Le Louvre”. The publisher associates freely
chosen actions
with these marks, such as sending a video presentation of the museum
to
a TV peripheral close-by.
With Intelligent Paper, each piece of paper retains all conventional
stationery
qualities.A book, a newspaper, a prospectus can still be used in the
usualways,
without any special equipment.However, if the user owns a pointer,
and is near
a peripheral device connected to theWeb, the paper document assumes
the behavior
of a touch-sensitive screen. It becomes enriched with arbitrarily
complex
information, provided by the document’s publisher at its web site.
How is this
achieved?
Intelligent Paper pages are standard sheets of paper entirely
covered with
printed marks, invisible to the human eye, but visible to the
pointer. These
marks convey two types of information: unique page identification
and local
coordinates relative to the page frame (plus possibly an encryption
code, see
section 5). When the user positions the pointer device at a certain
location on
the page, the pointer reads these invisible marks and determines
from them the
unique page identification and its own current location on the page,
and then
sends this information for interpretation over the web.
....

Unfortunately the information delivered as a result of pointing to a
link on the printed page appears on a conventional computer screen
rather than on the paper. Oh, well.. perhaps in Release 3.0...

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 16, 11:21 am, James Hogg <Jas.H...@gOUTmail.com> wrote:

> Underlining in print is taboo among typographers.

Why? I'm aware that italics in print were traditionally considered
the equivalent of underlining in manuscript and typescript, but given
that modern computer fonts give the option of italics, underlining or
both, it seems silly to ignore one of the options.

--
Guy Barry

[Adam Funk]

Have you come across many copy-editors? A lot (not all!) of them have
a mind-numbingly slavish devotion to perpetuating whatever arbitrary
rules they've always used.


--
No sport is less organized than Calvinball!

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Not unreasonable.

Now, for the first 30 years I worried about this problem, there was no
way to represent that in a manuscript :-). Manuscripts being typed on
typewriters, and all; italcs were already represented by underlining,
and there was no way to double-underline.

But these days, it's easy enough.

[Mike L]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:13:18 +0100, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>
wrote:

Underlining seems ugly to me, but maybe that's a matter of habit. More
important, then, is that you don't want lines slicing through your
descenders, which is a matter both of elegance and legibility.

--
Mike.

[Adam Funk]

I definitely agree with that last bit, but these days it's possible to
underline under the descenders.


--
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
[Ambrose Bierce]

[Whiskers]

Underlining is a pain with a typewriter, and probably with such things
as 'Linotype' machines, and may be even worse when setting up a page by
hand with moveable type. Underlining does spoil the visual rythm of a
printed page, even if it doesn't clash with descenders or force lines
of text to be further apart than they 'should' be.

[Adam Funk]

On 2012-07-17, Whiskers wrote:

> On 2012-07-16, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-07-16, Guy Barry wrote:
>>
>>> On Jul 16, 11:21 am, James Hogg <Jas.H...@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Underlining in print is taboo among typographers.
>>>
>>> Why? I'm aware that italics in print were traditionally considered
>>> the equivalent of underlining in manuscript and typescript, but given
>>> that modern computer fonts give the option of italics, underlining or
>>> both, it seems silly to ignore one of the options.
>>
>> Have you come across many copy-editors? A lot (not all!) of them have
>> a mind-numbingly slavish devotion to perpetuating whatever arbitrary
>> rules they've always used.
>
> Underlining is a pain with a typewriter, and probably with such things
> as 'Linotype' machines, and may be even worse when setting up a page by
> hand with moveable type.

AFAIK, only the Folio Society still uses that. I get the impression
most books are printed straight from the computer now.

> Underlining does spoil the visual rythm of a
> printed page, even if it doesn't clash with descenders or force lines
> of text to be further apart than they 'should' be.

That's a pretty good argument, although I [like to] think we were
talking about *sparing* use of underlining.


--
Unix is a user-friendly operating system. It's just very choosy about
its friends.

[Guy Barry]

On Jul 17, 8:01 pm, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> On 2012-07-17, Whiskers wrote:
>
> > Underlining does spoil the visual rhythm of a

> > printed page, even if it doesn't clash with descenders or force lines
> > of text to be further apart than they 'should' be.
>
> That's a pretty good argument, although I [like to] think we were
> talking about *sparing* use of underlining.

I'm not quite sure what's meant by "visual rhythm" here. If a page
were littered with underlines, I agree that they might be distracting;
but italics within italics aren't something that you need to use very
often, so I'd have thought that using a distinctive typeface would be
advantageous. The problem with using roman is that often it doesn't
really stand out, because all the surrounding text is in roman. In
these circumstances I'd have thought that clarity should take
precedence over aesthetics.

--
Guy Barry

[Whiskers]

On 2012-07-18, Guy Barry <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> On Jul 17, 8:01 pm, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> On 2012-07-17, Whiskers wrote:
>>
>> > Underlining does spoil the visual rhythm of a
>> > printed page, even if it doesn't clash with descenders or force lines
>> > of text to be further apart than they 'should' be.
>>
>> That's a pretty good argument, although I [like to] think we were
>> talking about *sparing* use of underlining.
>
> I'm not quite sure what's meant by "visual rhythm" here.

As the eye scans down the page, each line of text occupies space with
the ascenders of the characters, then the middle, then the descenders,
then the empty space before the ascenders of the line below.
Underlining impinges on that empty space.

> If a page
> were littered with underlines, I agree that they might be distracting;
> but italics within italics aren't something that you need to use very
> often, so I'd have thought that using a distinctive typeface would be
> advantageous. The problem with using roman is that often it doesn't
> really stand out, because all the surrounding text is in roman. In
> these circumstances I'd have thought that clarity should take
> precedence over aesthetics.

Hence my initial suggestion to use bold and bold-italic for the
'emphasised' text.

[Snidely]

Guy Barry explained on 7/14/2012 :

As someone mentioned, it is a common enough convention that some
newsreaders display with typeface changes as indicated. Mesnews does,
and I think xnews does, among the ones I'm familiar with. I don't
remember if Opera's M2 does.

And if you're using a news reader that displays the emphasis characters
as characters, it is still easy to pick up the convention. So it's
win-win.

>
> And some people on sci.lang use angle brackets ("<", ">") as a way of
> quoting words and phrases. What are they meant to represent?

And this is an example of a newsgroup-specific convention.

(In groups I've haunted, angle brackets are usually used to set off
URLs and URIs, and with some newsreaders that helps deal with
line-wrap-in-the-middle-of-the-URL.)

And it is common to use the guzinta ('>'} as the equivalent of the
printer's indented quote block, but sometimes when a quote block is
referencing something from outside the preceeding posts, a different
indentation indicator will be used. I've used ']', and that's what
I've seen most often, but hyphens ('-') also get used, or maybe pound
(weight) signs ('#'), but if you use the AT&T jargon of "octothorpe"
most of us will know you mean. Or serve some hashmarks right back at
you.


/dps




--
Who, me? And what lacuna?