Talk:Italic type

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The names of ships?! Surely this shouldn't be third on the list, if it's there at all.

--jc

"Words used as words."

What does that even mean?

--Frostyservant 04:00, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to clarify what I believe the original meaning was. (Felix the Cassowary)

This article seems rather ... short and incomplete compared to the information easily obtainable. If I had the time, I'd do a bit of research and expand it now. But I don't. I've added a brief history but I hope this article can become one of the best articles on Wikipedia (at least compared to its current state) because there's so much more to italics then what's written already... I've added a stub comment for now in the hopes that maybe someone else will help. Felix the Cassowary 13:25, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 POV 2 What about italic handwriting? 3 Oblique/Italic 4 Italic/Oblique and non western letters 5 Chinese and Japanese 6 Marking Titles 7 Ode to Joy is a bad example

[edit] POV

"The first italic type was employed by Aldus Manutius on his famous edition of Virgil, published at Venice in 1501, and is said to have been cut by Francesco de Bologna to imitate the beautiful hand-writing of Petrarch, famous Italian poet. The form at first consisted only of lower-case, important words being started with small roman capitals and it was independent of any roman font. The italic was used for the complete text, and in the hands of Aldus and the Elzevirs it made an admittedly graceful page medium, but somewhat too informal, in our estimation, and less legible than the more dignified roman style. The use of italic for emphasis in roman text was a later development which some say has marked the loss of its individual character, and not until Garamond made matched romans and italics was associated use considered."

Highlighted some pov statements, and also weasel-words in the last sentence. [unsigned comment by anonymous user at 69.119.123.118

The entire above paragraph is a direct quote from Type Lore by J.L. Frazier in 1925. --137.112.144.199 00:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What about italic handwriting?

Anyone out there able to provide descriptive info regarding the new italic handwriting as a substitute for cursive or block print?

Fyi...

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/family/article/0,2792,DRMN_107_4536159,00.html

It's estimated that 7 percent of children are being taught italic, which is popular with home-schoolers. The Beaverton, Ore., school district has adopted italic as its writing curriculum, and it's an option in the Portland district. In Denver Public Schools, there's no districtwide handwriting program, spokesman Mark Stevens says.

I believe that a few years ago the Portland, Ore., school board had to settle a debate between teachers in the district who wanted to teach their children to write D'Nealian and those who preferred italic. The school board decided to let each teacher do whatever he or she wanted.

D'Nealian was abandoned in my son's school district in California after he finished Kindergarten, but I don't think they replaced it with italic. 4.243.146.81 17:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oblique/Italic

This article begins by making a distinction between proper italic and labels simply slanted fonts oblique...then the rest of the article discusses oblique. I suggest that this should be moved to Oblique_type so this article can focus on the history of the typeface. bodhidharma 14:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italic/Oblique and non western letters

Could someone please diversify the history? How did it come that latin script oblique letters look one way (today?), but others, e.g. cyrillic letters, do not. Also do these scripts make the same distinction between italics and oblique? Are there any in depth sources on this topic?--Hhielscher 15:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese and Japanese

The following sentence exists inside the article Punctuation: "Italic type is never used in Chinese or Japanese.". My question: Why is italic type never used in Chinese or Japanese? --88.77.242.131 18:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Basically because it's a European invention. As far as I know, it's used only in the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, and no other writing systems. (I'm not sure about Greek, but I don't think it is.) —Angr 00:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

There are italic type for Greeks too, and not just the capitals. In Times New Roman, italic lower case gamma has the ball-shaped terminator that is not found in Roman font. As for lacking italic CJK letters, there are practical reasons of the lacking italic type. Chinese and Japanese languages have been adapted to be written vertically and horizontally, so if you try to apply italic or oblique effect, how should you tilt the letters? GUIs and word processors may have their ways of doing it, but those methods cause the same letter to look differently depending on whether the text flow is horizontal or vertical. If you think that's bad, at least it doesn't involve right to left text flow. --Jacob Poon 01:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob Poon (talk • contribs)

[edit] Marking Titles

Where the italics do not indicate emphasis, but are marking a title or something that is being mentioned or defined, quotation marks may be substituted:

• The word "the" is an article.
• An "even" number is one that is a multiple of 2.

There is a problem with the second example. If one was going to emphasize "even", then one should italicize it only. There shouldn't even be quotation marks anywhere in that statement as it stands. When defining a word, one shouldn't surround the word with quotation marks. I believe the example to be poor, and the rule defined as poor also. For example: A marker is a felt-tip writing or coloring utensil using ink. The word "marker" refers to a felt-tip writing or coloring utensil using ink. I will change it for now. If someone disputes it, change it back. LtDonny 23:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ode to Joy is a bad example

I think the use of "Ode to Joy" is a poor example for the article. In the examples it seems clear by context that the poem itself isn't being referenced, but Beethoven's composition is. The problem is that Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" isn't a stand-alone composition, but is the choral finale to his 9th symphony. Based upon our statement in the article, "Works that appear within larger works ... are not italicized, but merely set off in quotation marks," it should be set off by quotation marks, not italics. Gentgeen (talk) 04:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Very valid point, & I'll change this example to something less ambiguous. Actually, the whole Usage section may belong someplace else, since it's not so much about italic forms as the distinction between roman and italic (or oblique), and usage probably varies from style book to style book. But I won't get into that right now. Herbivore (talk) 03:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)