Italics

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bcomet
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Italics

Post by bcomet » May 25th, 2013, 3:16 pm

I have a question to throw out here:

In a novel, when naming restaurants, bars, ships' names, or a band's group name or a club's name, do you use italics? If so, do you continue to use it throughout or only once?

Thanks!

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Beethovenfan
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Re: Italics

Post by Beethovenfan » May 25th, 2013, 6:18 pm

Pretty sure it's throughout. But really, this sounds like a question for Polymath.
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polymath
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Re: Italics

Post by polymath » May 27th, 2013, 12:10 pm

Italics for titles, like vessel titles, book titles, album titles, journals, magazines, digests, and newspapers, serial publications, Web site titles, online digests, and databases and such. Use italics for titles throughout. Quote brackets for individual articles or songs though. Restaurant, club, pub, orchestra or band names in roman.

Note the prefix of a vessel name is not italicized: U.S.S. Constitution, H.M.S. Britania.

On the other hand, when italics are used for emphasis, as in signaling a word is used as a word: Italics means a cursive-like typeface decoration. In that case, only the first instance is italicized.

Similarly, when using words and phrases from another language that are not naturalized in the native language, use italics for the first instance only. If a native language dictionary lists the word or phrase, it's naturalized and set in roman for every instance. If not, italicize the first instance. For example, carpe diem, res ipsa loquitur, tu quoque, post hoc propter hoc, schadenfreude, origami, wabi sabi, veni vidi vici, and in medias res are naturalized terms; however, rari nantes in gurgite vasto, Roma invicta, Hápax legómenon, graecismus, graeg, and the like are not.

Taxonomic italics are another set of typesetting principles. Italicize genus and species, and suborder; i.e., Homo sapiens is italicized for every instance even though it is a naturalized Latinate term, a title, actually.
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Re: Italics

Post by bcomet » May 27th, 2013, 1:39 pm

Thanks Beethovenfan and Polymath (was, like Beethovenfan, hoping you'd answer this too)!

I am wondering if you can clarify on a couple of things:

Is roman essential or can italics work for names of bands, restaurants? What about a social club? (I had read that these days roman and italics are inter-changable, but you ARE the expert!) Is there a "*preferable* typeface for roman?

Also, if there is a song and lyrics (original to a character, not a copyright issue) that are used, do they need italics or can they just be indented on the page (as I have seen letters in novels at times).

Thanks again for all you do here sharing your expertise!

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polymath
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Re: Italics

Post by polymath » May 27th, 2013, 10:47 pm

Italics use frustrated typesetters no end back in the day of metal moveable type. An economical print shop had a comparatively limited supply of italics but an ample supply of roman in a book text, one or more Old Style book typefaces like Caslon, which was prevalent from mid nineteenth to mid twentieth century.

The term "out of sorts" owes its origins to the tantrum a typesetter threw when the supply of glyphs ran short in the middle of setting a full page of type. Or having to interrupt typesetting work flow and change cases (typecase drawers) from roman to italics to insert an emphasized word or two, sometimes having to cross into another chest of typecase drawers and across the work room. The typesetter term for a glyph is sort, from the process of dismantling, sorting a page galley's matrices after print run back into their respective type cases.

Italics type is meant to resemble the caligraphic handwriting of bygone eras. This is another reason why italics use is disparaged in all but nondiscretionary signaling, like for titles and other judicious emphasis. Handwriting is considered out of date. That and the words should as a best practice do the emphasizing and expressing and not use special formatting that may call undue attention to a writer's lax craft discipline.

Italics and roman type are not interchangeable. Roman type is easier on the eye than italics, causing less eye strain. Book typefaces are designed with ease of reading in mind. Typefaces like Times New Roman are a hybrid developed for ease of reading and space conservation, hence used in periodical publishing. A font or typeface catalog might index Times New Roman as an Old Style book typeface, but it is a serial publication typeface designed in Old Style.

Band, club, and similar institution names are not generally italicized as they are names rather than titles, and because the emphasis might confuse readers. Do the italics mean something significant? Probably not a good idea to give readers a pause to determine the reason for the italics emphasis.

For manuscript format, Times New Roman has become the preferable typeface. Personally, I don't like it. The proportionally spaced glyphs jam together and make editing and proofreading more tedious and eye straining than a monospaced typewriter typeface like New Courier. However, in this digital age, typewriter typefaces are considered out of date. Most every English language computer users' system has Times New Roman on it, hence, it is the one typeface that will display a manuscript on every users' computer the same way. Adobe's Acrobat PDF format gets around that complication by embedding typefaces, which might not be resident on a user's system. But not every platform will have an Acrobat editor application, so that's an issue too.

For book typefaces, I'm fond of Jansen, Goudy, Caslon, Aldine, and similar Old Style book typefaces that have spacious spacing (kerning) and sumptious bowls on B's, D's, G's, P's and such in capital and lower case. Again, though, what I have on my platform may not be on another's, so I default to Times New Roman since I'm confident it will be on recipients' systems. A typeface is a family of fonts, including roman, italics, and bold, plus different sizes like 12 point, and less and more. A font, prescriptively, is the specific typeface definition; i.e., 12 point Times New Roman italics.

Standard manuscript formatting of any actual song, poem, letter, or False Document calls for block indenting sans italics and quote marks for any excerpt or citation greater than four lines. A block indent is the same as a paragraph indent, conventionally a half inch except the entire parcel is indented. Word processor applications like Word and WordPerfect block indent automatically if a tab is typed after a soft line return.

Block indenting a song, poem, letter, other epistolary text, or cite is a best practice, even if less than four lines. The block indent signals emphasis, setting the selection apart from inline text. A highway sign, for example, that is in text, block indented will feel to readers closely like reading the actual sign, albeit subcosnsciously.

Roman text in block indents is standard for reading ease; however, if the intent is to signal a handwritten script, italics may be used for that signal. Signaling handwriting in a preceding transitional paragraph setup though is a best practice. Italics are otherwise unnecessary and roman is conventional.
Last edited by polymath on August 20th, 2013, 9:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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bcomet
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Re: Italics

Post by bcomet » May 28th, 2013, 1:38 pm

Thanks again, Polymath!

Now, after two hours of inserting unnecessary italics, for another two hours of changing things back the way they were before...

(I should have asked before!)

Again, you provide such a wealth of information. Thank you.

longknife
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Re: Italics

Post by longknife » June 1st, 2013, 8:23 pm

polymath wrote:Italics for titles, like vessel titles, book titles, album titles, journals, magazines, digests, and newspapers, serial publications, Web site titles, online digests, and databases and such. Use italics for titles throughout. Quote brackets for individual articles or songs though. Restaurant, club, pub, orchestra or band names in roman.

Note the prefix of a vessel name is not italicized: U.S.S. Constitution, H.M.S. Britania.

On the other hand, when italics are used for emphasis, as in signaling a word is used as a word: Italics means a cursive-like typeface decoration. In that case, only the first instance is italicized.

Similarly, when using words and phrases from another language that are not naturalized in the native language, use italics for the first instance only. If a native language dictionary lists the word or phrase, it's naturalized and set in roman for every instance. If not, italicize the first instance. For example, carpe diem, res ipsa loquitur, tu quoque, post hoc propter hoc, schadenfreude, origami, wabi sabi, veni vidi vici, and in medias res are naturalized terms; however, rari nantes in gurgite vasto, Roma invicta, Hápax legómenon, graecismus, graeg, and the like are not.

Taxonomic italics are another set of typesetting principles. Italicize genus and species, and suborder; i.e., Homo sapiens is italicized for every instance even though it is a naturalized Latinate term, a title, actually.
I relly enjoy your responses to grammar questions! Thanks so much.
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longknife
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Re: Italics

Post by longknife » June 1st, 2013, 8:26 pm

bcomet wrote:Thanks again, Polymath!

Now, after two hours of inserting unnecessary italics, for another two hours of changing things back the way they were before...

(I should have asked before!)

Again, you provide such a wealth of information. Thank you.
I don't know if MSWord had the advanced feature but LibreOffice and OpenOffice both have advanced sear and replace functions where you can search for the italicized word replace it.

I use it so often in my latest manuscript that I've just about got it down pat. Because of the genre, I use a lot of Spanish words that must be italicized.
Drop by Father Serra's Legacy http://msgdaleday.blogspot.com. Comments always eagerly awaited - but only if you find the item interesting enough to respond to.

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polymath
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Re: Italics

Post by polymath » June 2nd, 2013, 4:01 pm

Happy to be of service and entertainment, bcomet and longknife. Grammar has become my best friend forever since I use grammar handbook and style manual principles to figure out why aesthetic hunches aren't quite as accessible and appealing for readers as I intend and mean.
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