<i>, <em> or <span> for italics ?

[bookman156]

Actually, I had a look at the Random House boilerplate CSS just to remind myself just and they use <em> for italic. I couldn't find any <strong> or <b> tags at all. They seem to put bold, as I said, in h tags. So that's not bad.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by bookman156

There is no point especially to bold italic, except in h tags.

And why underline when that has always been the typewriter equivalent of italic, and is also confused for a hyperlink in an ebook.

I get that you are working with the typographically naive and perhaps talking them out of bad decisions is not worth the time.

I've seen bold italic in some eBooks by well known authors.

Endymion by Dan Simmons
Cop Hater by Ed McBain
Abandoned in Death by J. D. Robb
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Just to name some.

[bookman156]

Ah, found <strong> tags in a Random House book. No <b> tags. So someone there is in tune.

[bookman156]

I've seen bold italic in some eBooks by well known authors.

Endymion by Dan Simmons
Cop Hater by Ed McBain
Abandoned in Death by J. D. Robb
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Just to name some.

I expect you've also seen a complete absence of bold italic in many more books by 'well-known authors'.

[bookman156]

Obviously if you have a book title in a heading and the heading is bold the book title will be in bold italic. There's precious little other use for bold italic, save overkill.

[bookman156]

Incidentally, I suppose I may as well say that I am a print book editor for large publishers by profession and I never allow bold italic, except where it occurs in headings.

[bookman156]

Do I need to say I never let through bold italic in order for what I am saying to become clear and the penny to drop?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by bookman156

Incidentally, I suppose I may as well say that I am a print book editor for large publishers by profession and I never allow bold italic, except where it occurs in headings.

Yes, well and that provides you with a privilege, in our small corner of the world here--you work with pros, proper editors, etc. For the rest of us, we who slog through the muck and mire, we don't get to have such luxuries as the No Bold Dictums. ;-) That must truly be lovely. I envy you! Not the least of which would be the usual TATs, too. Gosh, I wonder what that's like?

Listen, I have writers that express sudden stoppages of speech with ellipses. I have those who express "trailing off" with em-dashes. I have the dreaded 4-dot ellipsis in the middle of cited material, mind you--not the end of cited material, or cited (and omitted) material that crosses a period/full-stop. Nope, just willy-nilly hither and yon.

Those are just everyday, routine, things. Here in the land of those who slave, well...unless we wish to also be unpaid proofreaders and editors for our customers (and promptly fail to make a living), as we say, you gotta run what you brung.

:-)


Hitch

[bookman156]

I never use the ellipsis, I prefer to make one with thin spaces.

Listen, I have writers that

Oh, so-called 'professional authors' are just as bad, let me assure you.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by bookman156

There is no point especially to bold italic, except in h tags.

Emphasis in citations is what comes to mind.

[bookman156]

Emphasis in citations is what comes to mind.

I can't think of any citation style that uses bold italic, though there might be.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by bookman156

I never use the ellipsis, I prefer to make one with thin spaces.



Oh, so-called 'professional authors' are just as bad, let me assure you.

Oh, I know--we have a number of tradepubs that go through our shop, too. But the difference is, we're not providing editing services to them, so it goes out how they approve it--we're not their publisher-editors or team. We're just doing the layout, typically.

I refuse, however, to allow "forward" or foreward" to go through my shop. Everyone here knows that they change it or die. That's entirely too close to the front matter and copyright pages. A girl's gotta have her standards.

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

Emphasis in citations is what comes to mind.

Yes--I was just thinking about this. We have a book with 90 Bajillionty citations right now and I was just thinking that I was sick to death of bold, lol!

Hitch

[bookman156]

This is quite fun:

https://practicaltypography.com/bold-or-italic.html

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by bookman156

This is quite fun:

https://practicaltypography.com/bold-or-italic.html

I love Practical Typography!

Hitch

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by bookman156

Incidentally, I suppose I may as well say that I am a print book editor for large publishers by profession and I never allow bold italic, except where it occurs in headings.

BTW, if you do line edits for Berkeley/Obsidian, could you tell them to PLEASE stop using "begs the question" to mean "poses the question"? I've been reading this series from them (Berkeley hard, Obsidian Kindle/mmpbk)--set in the late 18th, early 19th century, and not only do laypeople misuse it (frequently) but so too do barristers and it's driving me insane. There is no way that a barrister in 1795 or 1805, etc. would use "begs the question" that way. It's beyond irksome. You surely must know somebody over there.

Sorry to ask here, but it's just...driving me up the wall. That's a specific phrase that has no satisfactory, simple replacement and its bastardization is one of my hot buttons.

Hitch