Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)

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[edit] Underlining

For avoiding underlining see also the old discussion Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style--Alpha_Archive5#Underlining.--Patrick 23:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I suggest a merge of these 4 proposals to here, as they are all distinctly related:

and far too short by themselves. Thanks. --Quiddity·(talk) 01:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I have them in small doses because its easier to find what you need. With the longer guides you spend too much time searching for what the exact information. The titles tell exactly what your going to find in the article. "Italics" was already moved from a larger article for this very purpose. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I understand your point, some of the guideline pages are unwieldy. But this would make for a simple 4-line contents box, and eliminate a lot of redundancy. This "emphasis" guideline page is already written like a lead section to such a grouping (a concise summary).
I was also wondering if you had mentioned these anywhere for wider discussion yet (eg Village Pump)? Thanks :) --Quiddity·(talk) 01:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (ALL CAPS) should remain a separate page, because it should also apply in a lot of cases where the capitals are not used for emphasis per se. I haven't read the other two. Shinobu 23:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
They are all included under the umbrella concept of -- changing context by changing a typographical element. This is one of the reasons why I suggest a merge. -Quiddity·(talk) 00:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Richard: I was still wondering if you had mentioned these anywhere for wider discussion yet (eg Village Pump)? Are you actively pursuing making any of these into accepted guidelines? See Category:Wikipedia proposals and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies for instructions. --Quiddity·(talk) 00:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
@changing context by changing a typographical element: que? It's not in the MoS(E) article, and I only grasp a dim idea of what you mean by that. Which means that it's going to be totally ineffective. The situation is that there is an influx of people who are very obnoxious about keeping THE TITLE OF THEIR FAVOURITE SONG or band, or movie, or anime, etc. in all caps because it's done that way on the cover. Once, not using all caps was such a matter-of-course that there was no need for a MoS guideline on that. But today we need a clear guide to point to, and I think the MoS(AC) would be just that. If we move it to a subsection of this page, people are bound to think that it only applies in the case of emphasis, whereas MoS(AC) is meant to be a general guideline. Which is why it's very unnatural to have it here. Instances of ALL CAPS have nothing to do with emphasis most of the time. Shinobu 23:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I wouldnt even have a clue that I was supposed to look under emphasis to find out about ALL CAPS, thats why independent small guides are easier to find, you just look under the category of Style Guides and they jump right out at you. Same for italics, bold, underscore and the other style elements that are applied to text. I do agree that they should be promoted to full style guides. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 00:06, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I'll remove the merge tags, you all convinced me :) wore me out! --Quiddity 22:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
See those links just above, for the processes you need to undertake, in order to get them promoted. --Quiddity 06:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Heh, I just got redirected to, and so found for the first time, Emphasis (typography) (from bold). It also goes into a bit about italics and capitals too. I'm just being cheeky and pointing it out ;) --Quiddity 01:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Radiant's merge of italics to here (and presummably bold is next); And his merge of ALL-CAPS to MoS(Capitals). --Quiddity 22:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] changing context by changing a typographical element

I agree that "bold" "italics" "underline" and "ALL CAPS" could all be handled by one article titled: "changing context by changing a typographical element", but who would find it? Ease of finding the information is as important as grouping related items together. To find what I am looking for I look at the category for Manual of Style and then scan the topics. The MoS article is already too large and takes several readings. An article which repeats the information yet still keeps them seperate would do no harm. Why not create "changing context by changing a typographical element" --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It would do harm. Any updates to one wouldnt be reflected in the other. And redundancy/repetition is what leads many of the guidelines to being so long in the first place! Hence my merge suggestion. --Quiddity 18:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
There is lots of redundancy in Wikipedia, thats what makes it useful. I am sure if the birthdate of Abraham Lincoln was discovered to be a different date, it would have to be changed in more than one spot. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 14:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WTF

Why was italics merged with emphasis? The titles of books aren't italicized because they are being emphasized. Emphasis needs to be its own topic. Now I am totally confused when I read this topic. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 20:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Because (rather obviously) italics is a form of emphasis, and the merge tag was there for several weeks without objection, and several people concur on this talk page, and in the previous section you also seem to be in concurrence. >Radiant< 20:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
    • This is, um, rather silly. Italics are a typographical convention that may be used for emphasis (as here), but may also be used for a variety of other purposes. Indeed, the more sensible thing to do would be to merge the other way, as it seems that all other forms of emphasis besides italics are, in fact, discouraged. Kirill Lokshin 23:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italics and Emphasis merger

thread moved here, from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (italics)

I am reverting the merger of italics and emphasis. Italics are used for emphasis, but not all things are italicized for emphaisis, and I find it confusing. Books are put in italics not to emphasize them but to let you know you are looking at the title of a book. The meaning is New York Times not "New York Times!". Changes to the Style Guides should have consensus before major changes are made. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. This is utterly silly; by far the vast majority of uses of italics are not, in fact, for emphasis. Kirill Lokshin 23:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
They are, but for typographical/visual emphasis, not rhetorical emphasis. Perhaps we just need to consider retitling MoS(Emphasis) to something clearer, that more understandably encompasses all of italics/bold/underline/emphasis? --Quiddity 23:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
MoS (Typography)? (But that might be too broad.) Kirill Lokshin 00:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it was fine the way it was. From an encyclopedia editor's perspective, italics and emphasis are two different things. Blurring the two (only mildly related) concepts was, and still is, a bad idea. EVula 05:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
If I were looking for guidance on how and when to use italics in Wikipedia, I’d much prefer to click on a link that said Wikipedia:Manual of Style (italics). Neither the bold nor the italics topics need to be here. I question the necessaity of the emphasis page at all. It doesn’t cover anything that isn’t already covered better elsewhere. The fact that italics, bold, and caps are all related can easily be accomplished by cross-linking them. Near the top of each, provide see-also links to the others.
The amount of truly emphasis-related content can be covered in a sentence or two on the main MoS page:
  • Do not double-emphasize words, such as by combining italics with quotation marks or exclamation points.
  • Do not underline words; it conflicts with the convention of underlining hyperlinks. Use italics instead.
It doesn’t need a whole page to itself. --Rob Kennedy 05:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


Sure its covered elsewhere, a little bit in italics, a little bit in bold, a little bit in capitalization. Thats exactly why it needs to have its own article. An editor shouldn't have to read an entire manual of style guides to find what they are looking for, it should be easy to spot when looking at the list of style guides. Thats why the Chicago Manual of Style and the New York Times Manual of Style have a guide on emphasis --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 16:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the mere existence of an Emphasis section. I just think that most editors won't think "Hey, I want to add some extra 'oomf' to this article. I think I'll look up Emphasis!". Leave Bold and Italics as the "primary" MoS chapters, and let Emphasis just sum up all the relevant rules. A little bit of overlap isn't the end of the world. EVula 17:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, this is more complex than I thought. I found it strange there was a MOS for bold, for italics, for capitalization and for 'all caps'. I suppose 'emphasis' isn't the best word for all of those (maybe 'markup' or something?) but I would expect bold, underline and italics to use the same guideline (which would probably tell us not to use underlining at all, etc). E.g. a novice user might use boldface for quotes instead of italics. He might look that up in MOS (Quotes), MOS (Bold) and/or MOS (Italics), and I think all three of those should redirect to the same place. Do people agree with that? And if so, what would be the best name? >Radiant< 21:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
No, I don’t agree. MOS (italics) should be its own page. There’s so much more to italics than simple emphasis. Italicizing a book title, for example, is not “emphasizing” its status as a title. It’s simply a way of styling a title. Would it make sense, semantically, to use the <em> HTML tag in such a case?
I’m gradually accepting that MOS(emphasis) could be a useful page, but mainly as a page refered to by other MOS pages, not as a page anyone would think to visit as a first stop. MOS(bold) is so short that it could easily be subsumed into MOS(emphasis).
Note that MOS(ALL CAPS) redirects to MOS(capital letters), which is mostly not about emphasis. If the emphasis-related content from MOS(capital letters) is merged to MOS(emphasis), it should be removed from MOS(capital letters). In its place should be put a note: “For information on the use of capital letters for emphasis, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (emphasis).” There’s too much overlap in style advice in the Manual of Style; it needs more cross-referencing instead.
There is no MOS(quotes) page, but if there were, it would be mostly about quotations, as found in the main MOS page. Its section on scare quotes could reasonably be moved into MOS(emphasis).
Don’t try to merge MOS(italics) and MOS(capital letters) in their entirety. They cover rather distinct topics that do not fall under the umbrellas of emphasis or markup. --Rob Kennedy 08:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • MOS(ALL CAPS) was merged to MOS(capital letters) by Richard Norton 2 weeks ago, and doesnt figure into the current discussion at all.
  • I think some of us are talking on cross-wires wrt intended meanings. I'm considering the word 'emphasis' primarily as a poor substitute for a collective-term to encompass italics/bold/underline (is there a better piece of typographical terminology that groups these items?) as I see some benefit in merging those style guide proposal subjects.
  • Richard Norton (the primary author of all these proposals) is arguing partially from a standpoint of desiring brevity-above-all. But that kinda conflicts with 99% of the other style-guide pages, which tend to be over 2 screens long; I don't know how much weight his argument for brevity carries? There are pros to short-but-numerous pages, and pros to longer-but-fewer merged pages. He has also suggested above that redundancy is a good thing, which I'm diametrically opposed on.
I hope that accurately clears a few things up. --Quiddity 09:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Just as an aside:
"Would it make sense, semantically, to use the <em> HTML tag in such a case?"
Technically, yes. Any web developer's manual worth its salt will note that <em> is to be used instead of <i> (just as <b> has been depreciated in favor of <strong>). That said, it is an issue that primarily only concerns web developers, not run-of-the-mill Wikipedia editors, which is why I don't think such a technicality should concern this naming policy. EVula 16:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

OK. How does Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) sound?. Merge italics, bold, and underlining there. Primarily italics, since that’s the main formatting technique used on Wikipedia. It would also include a short section on bold, and an even shorter section on underlining. I suppose with a label of “text formatting,” it might include guidelines on color, too.
I’m opposed to redundancy in the MoS, too. When the same topic is covered in multiple places, then people will discuss them on multiple talk pages, and then make changes based on those discussions only to the one page in question. I apply this opinion throughout the Wikipedia namespace. (Redundancy elsewhere in Wikipedia isn’t so bad. I recently mentioned this on my talk page regarding citations.[1])
I favor having broad categories in the style manual. That’s partly because I’d like for the {{style}} template to list all the approved supplementary manuals without the list getting too unwieldy. The main MoS page has a “submanuals” section, but it’s buried at the bottom of the page whereas {{style}} appears near the top along the side of every submanual. It serves as a good method of cross-referencing all the style guides, but having too many discrete topics there will just make it harder to navigate. --Rob Kennedy 04:17, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Perfect. I second the name. And thoroughly agree with your explanation. --Quiddity 04:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Perfect name. I heartily support the move. EVula 05:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Concur. >Radiant< 09:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. Now this page just needs a lead section, and a checkover, and then it can be included in the {{style}} template. --Quiddity 20:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Well done. The use of the vague term "emphasis" cased confusion. In editorial terms, it can mean laying stress on a word, or making a statement an exclamation. In typographic or visual design terms, it means adding visual contrast to some text, in service of some editorial aim—yes, including for example, italicizing a book title to distinguish it from surrounding text. In writing in general, these two meanings of the word overlap, but often people assume it means only one or the other.
Some time ago Wikipedia changed the wikitext italics to create <i> elements instead of <em>—a minor backward move, I think. —Michael Z. 2006-10-13 18:04 Z

[edit] Italics in Cyrillic and Greek characters

Is there any agreement on whether to italicize or not Cyrillic and Greek characters ? If not, I propose to adopt a guideline advising against the use of italics in these cases:

  • Italics are not necessary, since the difference with "normal Latin text" is obvious.
  • Italics hinder readability, at least for those of us not used to those funny characters :-)

Of course, there would be exceptions, as for the "Bibliography" and "References" sections, where italics in these scripts do tend to make sense.

I imagine something very simple, along the lines of:

Do not use Italics for the following cases:
  • Foreign language words and texts in Cyrillic or Greek characters, such as Кириллица or Ελληνικό.

I'm posting this in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Cyrillic)#Italics in Cyrillic characters & Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Greek)#Italics in Greek characters too. - - Regards, Evv 03:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

If not familiar with the characters, then readability is probably pretty close to zero already, so would italicizing them really hinder anything? I’m only half joking — this is an English-language encyclopedia, so the amount of Cyrillic and Greek text in articles shouldn’t be so much that this even becomes an issue.
Anyway, rather than making a special rule for Cyrillic and Greek characters, we could probably phrase this as an exception in the Loan words section: Italicize words from foreign languages, unless they are spelled using non-Latin scripts. That would include not only Cyrillic and Greek, but also Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, and all the other scripts that don’t appear on the keyboards of most of our readers.
And once discussion has come to a close, please summarize the discussions from the other two places you’ve posted this, to lessen the effect of a fractured conversation. --Rob Kennedy 07:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree on everything you said :-) In this, I represent a middle ground: I don't speak any language written in non-Latin scripts, but I do make some sense of Cyrillic and Greek characters, and find them quite interesting. In my personal case, not italicizing those words does make a small welcomed difference. (Reading other comments I came to understand that it's my IE's fault -and my lack of computer skills- what makes me see some italicized Cyrillics as little more than closely packed sticks)
Italicizing or not has become a small but distracting issue on some articles of the Latin/Greek/Cyrillic frontlines of south-eastern Europe. Setting a clear guideline on this would help avoid more edit wars than reason would have us expect :-)
In Naming conventions (Cyrillic) some technical issues against italicizing have been raised. I will provide a summary later.
Anyway, is anyone against this proposal, either for italicizing, or against setting any guideline on this ? - Best regards, Evv 04:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I am certainly against italicizing Cyrillic. I encountered more than one person during my Wikipedia tenure who complained about italicized Cyrillics being difficult to read. If we can explicitly add this to policy, I'm all for it.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a particularly large stake in this, but if I had to vote, I'd vote against the use of italics in conjunction with Cyrillics for the various reasons mentioned above. Slight formatting issues are irrelevant if the words become illegible; what's the point in having an encyclopedia if nobody can read it? :-) EVula 16:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I support this idea. Not just Greek and Cyrillic, but also Armenian, Georgian, (Perso-)Arabic, Hebrew, and in general all non-Latin scripts. IMO they look dreadful when italicized; I normally, write a translation (of e.g. a placename) into the language not using a Latin alphabet not using italics, and write the transliteration into the Latin alphabet in italics.--Tekleni 16:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that'd be a good distinction to have; proper italics for the Latin translation, but no italics for non-Latin. EVula 16:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
That's current practice anyway, at least for Russian.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree, all those weird languages are confusing enough already as they are. ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

I agree. Summary:

  • English: plain text (or bolded if article name)
  • Non-Latin: plain text, not bolded ever, is distinct by script only
  • Transliteration: Italics

That covers it. •NikoSilver• 16:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

OK - question: How would we do the names at Mount Ararat?--Tekleni 16:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Turkinsh, Kurdish, and Azeri would be italicized, and the rest of the languages would not be.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:48, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Why? In 'Non-Latin' above, I had in mind those peculiar extended characters too. •NikoSilver• 16:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Extended characters are considered to be a part of the Latin alphabet; they are not a part of the English alphabet (which is a subset of Latin alphabet), if that's what you mean. Extended Latin is still Latin.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I think "English" here covers words that consist primarily of the English alphabet, diacritics, and ligatures. In the example provided, "Αραράτ" and "Ağrı Dağı" would both fall into the "non-Latin" category.
"Primarily" here means that whatever guideline we come up with would be just that: a guideline. It would still be open to interpretation depending on the usage. Does that make sense?
Also, to address the Ararat example again, I think that, as non-English translations of the English word, they shouldn't be italicized, especially in cases where they are all presented together (as opposed to a single section of an article that notes what one thing means in another language, where such a change in formatting would be a lot less noticeable and jarring). EVula 17:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I've got no problem with not italicizing non-latin scripts (esp. since Cyrillic letters like г/г look different when italicized). But in the case of Cyrillic, I've been putting it in bold in pages like Russian phonology. Is that considered still appropriate in our new non-italicizing plans? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with considering Turkish etc as using a non-Latin script. Diacritics are used in transliterations into the Latin alphabet, notably Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Persian. See the Tiberian Hebrew transliteration at Mount Ararat - is that considered a non-Latin script? In a less extreme case, the Greek text could be transliterated Ararát. Is that also considered a non-Latin script?--Tekleni 17:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the only things that should be bolded are: 1) the primary title of the article; and 2) alternate names commonly used in English. This may sometimes include non-English names, like Convention du Mètre, but only if they're common in English. I think names that are not commonly used in English, but included only as secondary reference, shouldn't be bold. --Delirium 18:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
And Greek and Cyrillic characters should not be bolded; they are hardly ever "commonly used" in English without transliteration, and our bold Greek font looks terrible. Septentrionalis 18:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Please keep in mind the distinction between foreign terms, which should be italicized, and proper names, which normally should not. (also, "loan words" are words of foreign origin which have been adopted into English, and often should not be italicized.) In running text, a reference to Mount Ararat or Nikita Khrushchev wouldn't be italicized, nor even Ağrı Dağı if it were used so. Although in the context of an article's first line they might be, for some other reason:

  • As the first occurrence of a defined term.
  • For visual distinction when used as a transliteration, especially when it is different from a conventional anglicized version, eg, Joseph Stalin (Russian: Йосиф Сталин, Yosif Stalin).
  • When writing about the word, rather than what it represents, eg, Stalin is derived from the Russian word stal’ 'steel'.

Also remember that foreign scripts are less accessible to most English-language Wikipedia readers, and should only appear rarely, when there is a reason for them: once in an article's introduction for the sake of Google, or when writing about the foreign characters rather than the meaning or sound of words, eg, "г is the Ukrainian letter he [ɦɛ] as in hovoryty, or Russian ge [gɛ], as in govorit’, ‘to speak’." In almost every other context it is better to transliterate.

Bold should practically never be used. The first occurrence of the title term only should be bold as a lead-in to draw the eye into the article. Articles which throw in multiple bolded phrases just dilute the design of the page. Any text formatting should be "just enough", to keep from distracting the reader's eye. Alternate names and translations should be formatted as in running text, typically in italics, but not even that if they are Cyrillic or Greek—their special status is obvious from their position at the beginning of the article's first paragraph. Boldface visual emphasis is so strong that it should never be used for formatting a phrase in running text, but only as a block-level or page-level design element. Within the body an article it denotes a heading or subheading, a table header, or perhaps the defined term of a long definition which is laid out as a block. —Michael Z. 2006-10-13 18:50 Z

I think we should have no comma between name and transcription as a rule (as it keeps articles with many foreign names and those with only one consistent with each other). In your example (assuming Greek were relevant enough), it should be like this: Joseph Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Сталин Iosif Stalin, Greek: Ιωσήφ Στάλιν Yosif Stalin).--Tekleni 19:03, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. This way it looks like a run-on and is generally not neat. Using a comma to separate the foreign name from transliteration and a semicolon to separate languages is a much cleaner solution; like this: Joseph Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Сталин, Iosif Stalin; Greek: Ιωσήφ Στάλιν, Yosif Stalin).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
That's my preferred solution also. In addition, if there is a really long set of translations and transliterations, I think it should be moved to a separate section ("Name" or something) so we don't have the first 5 lines of the article taken up with alternate names, as currently happens with a handful of royalty who have multiple titles in multiple languages. --Delirium 19:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree, especially considering that a solution like this is already in place. It would be nice to mandate usage of a name box where the number of alternate names exceeds, say, two.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Yup, when it reaches more than about two languages, move it down or give it its own paragraph or section. Examples: Podolia, Western Bug. And compare the clean opening of Black Sea, which has a Name section, to the cluttered, overbolded intro of Red Sea, which forces the reader's eye to grope uncomfortably like blind man on a nude beach, before it can actually read the first sentence of the article [fixed]. —Michael Z. 2006-10-13 19:55 Z

Since nobody disagrees, following Rob Kennedy's proposal I would add the following to the "Foreign terms" section: Do not italicize foreign words or phrases in non-Latin scripts (exception are allowed in the "References" and "Further reading" sections). Feel free to rephrase it. - Regards, Evv 16:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with "don't italicise non-Latin scripts", and also include all kinds of extended Latin in "Latin". —Nightstallion (?) 09:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree

I definitely disagree, as far as the Cyrillic alphabet is concerned. The reason is that the Cyrillic alphabet has a number of letters common with the Roman alphabet (including lower case ones), making it impossible in some cases to know if a certain word is in one alphabet or the other. If you encounter say 'Tacex' in your English text, you wouldn't know whether it's the Roman 'Tacex' or the Cyrillic 'Тасех' (that would read 'Taseh' if transliterated). Whether and how often such confusion may appear in Wiki texts I cannot say, what's certain is that without italicization one cannot certainly tell Cyrillic words in the text. The case of the Greek alphabet seems to be different, as its letters (the lower case ones at least) have a distinct immediately identifiable shape. Apcbg 16:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Greek... "ΗΟΡΕ ΤΟ ΚΝΟΤ" and "HOPE TO KNOT" look quite similar, too, don't they? —Nightstallion (?) 22:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Your example illustrates the possible confusion if words written in capital Greek letters (as in Greek acronyms) are not italicized, stemming from the fact that the upper case letters A, B, E, Z, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, T, Y, X occur both in Greek and Roman alphabets.
Among the lower case letters it's probably just 'o'.
In the case of Cyrillic alphabet, the capital letters that occur also in the Roman alphabet are A, B, E, K, M, H, O, P, C, T, X (I recall some German tourists being amused in trying to read the Cyrillic 'PECTOPAHT' i.e. 'Restaurant' as if written in Roman alphabet ...), while the overlapping lower case letters include 'a', 'e', 'o', 'p', 'c', 'y', 'x' — enough to allow for possible confusion. Therefore, I confirm my opinion that the above general decision not to italicise words in non-Roman alphabets is less than well thought over. Apcbg 12:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
They do italize characters in Russian texts, so it should be allowed here as well. Humanophage 13:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You're right, in some cases (mostly in acronyms) the lack of italics would prove confusing. However, in our articles Greek and Cyrillic characters are generally used with a italicized transliteration immediately before or after them, thus further reducing the chances of confussion.

Acronyms in Greek and Cyrillic are usually used only after the full name in Greek and Cyrillic, since the rest of the text would use latin -or English- acronyms. So, even here the possibilities of confussion are minimal.

As far as I see it, confussion would only arose in those cases in which proper context is lacking. The simple solution would be to provide that proper context :-) Best regards, Ev 17:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

I’ve begun an introduction for this page. It’s not complete, but maybe it will give someone else something to build on. --Rob Kennedy 06:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of foreign words to be left unitilicized

Hi everyone, me again :-) After possibly making some mistakes (diff.), I would like to add more clarity to the "Foreign terms" section, more specifically the good rule of thumb:

Loan words or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary.

Appearance in any single English language dictionary would suffice, or appearance in a certain number would be necessary ? In any case, it would be a good idea to designate which dictionaries would qualify for this use. (I won't propose any for lack of experience on the issue).

And then, to make sure that I don't make the same mistake again :-), how about using the resulting guideline to create a Wikipedia:List of foreign words to be left unitilicized (to be kept fully protected) ? - Best regards, Evv 19:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

A rule of thumb is best left as a rule of thumb to help discriminating editors, not a legal code to be enforced with a stack of dictionaries.
My dictionary (the Canadian Oxford) actually italicizes some headwords, to indicate that it is "originally a foreign word and not naturalized in English". —Michael Z. 2006-11-01 19:27 Z
Makes sense. Forget about the thumb rule then. (To be honest, only after your comment do I understand better the meaning of the expression).
How about creating the list ? - Evv 21:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Be my guest. Lists of English words of international origin may help. —Michael Z. 2006-11-01 21:50 Z

[edit] Is this an acceptable usage of bold?

[2] I think it's unnecessary, but BWCNY insists on adding it. --NE2 07:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The example poined to in the guide [3] suggests its use as a kind of definition list is encouraged/allowed and this crops up, for example in lists of characters in films/books [4] (although I do wonder if the examples need clarifying (for example I have seen characters given as "Dave Spratt, a man out of time", "Dave Spratt, a man out of time", "Dave Spratt: A man out of time", and "Dave Spratt: A man out of time"). With that in mind your example could fall within a definiiton list-type affair but I think no one would lose any sleep if the bold formatting wasn't there but then again it might marginally improve comprehension of the list (within usability guidelines - if you were speed reading the page you'd be able to pick out the numbers). I also suspect some headers and the use of Template:Main might also come in handy there. (Emperor 20:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Omission—never italic stuff

When I put a cleanup tag on a page because it used math markup on chemical formulas and left them italic, and the author questioned, "Why?", I searched in vain for a sensible statement of this well-known rule in the MoS. See Talk:Chemical vapor deposition.

There are some things that should never be italicized, even if they are contained within text that is otherwise italicized for emphasis or because it is a book title or for whatever reason. These include:

  • Symbols for chemical elements
  • Symbols for units of measure
  • Symbols for mathematical operators, such as "sin x" and "ln 2" and "exp(kT/r)"

These are common, well-known rules. For example,

U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual
  • 11.12 ... Chemical symbols (even in italic matter) and certain other standardized symbols are set in roman.
AIP Style Manual, 4th ed., 1990, American Institute of Physics, p. 20
  • (3) Some latin letters, considered abbreviations of words, are properly roman instead of italic—for example, chemical symbols (O, Ne), most multiletter abbreviations (fcc, ESR, exp, sin), and most units of measure (K, Hz).
Barry N. Taylor, Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI), NIST Special Publication 811, 1995 (follow links for examples, etc.)
Section 10.2.2 Units—roman
  • The symbol for units and SI prefixes are roman:
Section 10.2.3 Descriptive terms—roman
  • Symbols representing purely descriptive terms (for example, the chemical elements) are roman, as are symbols representing mathematical constants that never change (for example, π) and symbols representing explicitly defined functions or well defined operators (for example, Γ(x) or div):

We ought to have something about this on the project page. Gene Nygaard 10:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Note specifically that when math markup is used, the letters are normally italicized. That's where many of the problems in Wikipedia usage arise. In order to avoid it, you need to use \mathrm or \mbox to get individual letters in roman text, or use the special symbols for operators such as \sin or \log rather than just sin or log (there is also a generic one you can use to make other text display as an operator does) as text within the math markup. Gene Nygaard 10:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MOSITALICS

I already created the redirect page WP:MOSITALICS to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting), analogous to WP:MOSBOLD - we cannot remember every possible ambiguation e.g. not WP:BOLD (to another guideline) while WP:ITALICS goes to the MOS related page: better for every Manual of Style guideline to have each existing WP:SHORTNAME also have the corresponding WP:MOSSHORTNAME — as such very often already exists anyway. (I'd dare say only MOS:SHORTNAME would even be better, but that could only be a broader discussion and if consensus were reached, requires a bot replacing each occurrence of every WP:SHORTNAME and WP:MOSSHORTNAME with its MOS:SHORTNAME.)
My current suggestion is limited to putting WP:MOSITALICS into the box with list of redirects that exist, in the 'Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)'; another possibility might be to leave things as they are, thus without suggesting to use WP:MOSITALICS, while the latter [in a talk page or in the Search field] being used by analogy with other shortnames, still arrives at the intended page. — SomeHuman 26 Jan 2007 07:40 (UTC)

[edit] Sports?

Should the name of a sports team, or sports league be italicised? For example

The AF Corse Racing Team took part in the 2004 FIA GT.

Should "AF Corse Racing Team" and/or "FIA GT" be italicised? They seem like the sort of thing that should be but I'm not sure. James086Talk 23:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

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