Re: A silly question (Re: Vijf: Two Weeks to MESSENGER)

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
In article <flmvml$utu$1@xxxxxxxx>, <tkmailers@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mike Stone wrote:
Bob Silverberg also did a little short _Sunrise on Mercury_

Several persons here seem to prefer bracketing a story title
between
underscores rather than double quotes, as you do above. What's the
reason?

Is it just an old habit from days when usenet gateways didn't
always
handle double-quote character (if there were such days). Or is it
because some news clients seem to underline text quoted with
underscores? Or something else?

Well, I was taught to put a story or article or other short piece
that didn't fill a volume by itself between quotes, and a novel
or magazine title underlined or italicized (depending on whether
it's typing, or print). You can't underline or italicize anything
in ASCII, which many newsreaders still use (mine included) and
which is almost impossible for most newsreaders to misinterpret.
Therefore I use _underscores_ for book or journal titles and
*asterisks* for emphasis.

This can be handy in distinguishing "Ender's Game" (short story) from
_Ender's Game_ (novel) or "The Princess Bride" (movie) from _The
Princess Bride_ (novel).


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A silly question (Re: Vijf: Two Weeks to MESSENGER)
    ... underscores rather than double quotes, ... You can't underline or italicize anything ... Thanks Dorothy. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: A silly question (Re: Vijf: Two Weeks to MESSENGER)
    ... underscores rather than double quotes, ... You can't underline or italicize anything ... which is almost impossible for most newsreaders to misinterpret. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: A silly question (Re: Vijf: Two Weeks to MESSENGER)
    ... Several persons here seem to prefer bracketing a story title between underscores rather than double quotes, ... Or is it because some news clients seem to underline text quoted with underscores? ... which is almost impossible for most newsreaders to misinterpret. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Handling apostrophes and other characters
    ... quotes than a ' is), I wasn't reccomending using any specific character. ... then you now have to find someway to escape real underscores. ... > the data you display, then what if the original input string looked like ... > So if you tried to replace the underscores with single quotes for display, ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.asp.general)
  • Re: Stupid newbie question.
    ... > show traditional plaintext emphases with different text styles (bold, ... > underline, ...) ... where slrn presented the asterisk ... underscore enclosed 'underscores' as ...
    (comp.editors)