SomeSteve:
One way to do that would be to use an <i> to indicate the visual italics and use <em> to indicate an emphasized word or phrase.
Code:
CSS:
i {font-style:italic}
i em {font-style: normal}
HTML:
<p><i>Aha, so the cow did <em>not</em> jump over the moon!</i></p>
If you have “large swaths” (my cutoff is anything more than 1 paragraph) then I will use a <div> to the default styling using the css. This eliminates the need for all the extra html tags - reducing code-bloat.
Code:
CSS:
div.telepathy {font-style: italic}
div.telepathy em {
background-color: red;
color: green;
text-decoration: underline;
font-variant: small-caps;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: bold;
TTS-voice: stress-the-heck-out-of-it;
**or whatever you want to style your emphasized section**
}
HTML:
<div class="telepathy">
<p>Aha, so the cow did <em>not</em> jump over the moon!</p>
<p>It <em>must</em> have been the spoon!</p>
<p>Because <em>most</em> people realize that emphasis is
<em>NOT</em> just a visual slanting of the letters!!</p>
</div>