Let's say I'm asking a question about the word "cheese". Which of the following should I use? I see various versions being used all over, and it'd be nice to have something consistent.
cheese indicate something yellow?I usually use italics. Sometimes I use “double quotation marks” when referring to long phrases or whole sentences. I would stay away from bold, verbatim, or plain.
verbatim in the context of EL&U?
/ɪntɚˈnæʃənəl foʊˈnɛtɪk ˈælfəbɪt/; [me̞ð̞it̪e̞ˈrã̠ne̯o̞] vs [me̞ð̞it̪e̞ˈrã̠ne̯o̞]; etc. In Georgia, the difference is even more notable than here.
To add on to nohat's answer, italics are really the standard typographical practice for this. Wikipedia states that italic type is used when...
Mentioning a word as an example of a word rather than for its semantic content (see use-mention distinction): "The word the is an article".
As another authoritative example, the excellent blog Language Log written by a number of professional linguists also uses italics in this way. Here's an example, chosen for no reason other than that it's their most recent post that requires the use-mention distinction:
Words like fantastic and absolutely work well [for infixing expletives], and formations like fan-fucking-tastic and abso-bloody-lutely are well established in colloquial English; Tiggy's fan-flaming-tastic had a more newspaper-printable choice of expletive (still profane, because flaming is an allusion to the flames of hell, but not unacceptably profane, even from a royal nanny).
In the example presented by Claudiu—"Does the word cheese indicate something yellow?" I would follow the Chicago Manual of Style convention of italicizing words used as words:
Does the word cheese indicate something yellow?
I would do so not because this particular option is inherently superior to other ways of calling out a word used as word, but because I've done it for 35 years, to the point where the practice has become almost automatic for me.
I don't, however, use italics in all instances that involve calling out a word used as word in an answer. In single-word requests, where (in effect) the single word used as word is the crux of the answer, I follow the very frequent practice of SWR answerers on this site of putting the suggested word in boldface. I think of this as a convenience for readers who may be looking for the SWR suggestion—and nothing else—in each answer they scan. It's especially helpful I think for people who are considering their own SWR answer and want to scan the already-posted answers to see whether someone else has already suggested the word they want to nominate. For example:
For a single word meaning "a food consisting of the coagulated,compressed, and usually ripened curd of milk separated from the whey," I suggest cheese.
The other place where I use boldface formatting is when I am reporting multiple early instances of a word or phrase in answer to an etymology question. Here again the point is to give readers a quick signal as to where the relevant word or phrase appears in the block quote that I've retyped. People who want to read the examples carefully are welcome to do so; but for many readers, I suspect, only the immediate context—or perhaps only the bare existence of the word or phrase in the cited quotation—is of interest. It's very easy for italics to get lost in a paragraph-length block quote, and of course italics in the original source are far more common than boldface there. For example, from Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois, volume 9 (1880):
The exportation of butter from January 1, 1879, to November 27. has reached 34,705,284 pounds; the excess over last year for same time, 13,518.230 pounds. The exportation of cheese for same time is 120,350,857; a falling-off of 8.638,316 pounds, as compared with last year, as per New York price-current report of November 27, 1879.
I'm certainly willing to reconsider my boldfacing practices if they strike enough people here as being obnoxious or counterproductive in some other way, but I think that they usefully serve the crucial purpose of making particular kinds of answers easier to read.
My usage, as I put it in a post some time ago,
In this medium, where writing and typography has to express speech and sounds, I use italics and boldface like this:
- I use plain italics only for citing examples and titles. Never for emphasis.
- I use boldface for emphasis. These are words that would be LOUD in my speech.
- I use bold italics for technical terms, usually with capitals, and links if I have them.
- I also use bold italics in examples to point out individual parts that get mentioned in the text.
I have found that this formatting practice holds up both in Official Answers and also in comments.
These are habits I formed because I have to explain grammar and language and it's not easy
to do that using unaided English orthography and no sound effects.
I don't really think code is a good alternative for adding emphasis. Code is for code, not visually highlighting something.
According to me, italics serve the purpose. They're called emphasis (<em>) in Web development too, so here you have it.
<em> is equivalent to italics. Italics used to be represented by <i>, but that is now deprecated. <em> is styled as italics by default, but it is not limited to just this purpose. Using CSS, you can not only have <em> not use italics, but you can give emphasis to scripts which do not include the concept of italics. Again, this is nothing to do with whether code should be used for emphasis, just that <em> does not equate to italics, italics are how we sometimes express emphasis.
Commented
Oct 21, 2016 at 19:08
It depends entirely upon the context.
When I'm emphasizing a single word or phrase as an example, I use italics.
When I'm emphasizing a point, I use bold, as in:
That is a very good phrasing choice.
or CAPS
That is a VERY good phrasing choice.
When I'm quoting a person (real or hypothetical), source, or post, or I am making a usage / punctuation / phrasing example that is not important enough to isolate:
If it is a word, a phrase, or a sentence fragment, I use 'single quotes.'
If it is a complete sentence, I use "double quotations."
If I want to isolate an example, or if it is more than one or two short sentences (in any circumstance), I use
Block Quotation
This is how I handle emphasis / quotation. The tools are all there for a reason, so we might as well use them.
Actually, I think that the correct answer is single quotes. Double quotes are used for quoting a statement by someone else: -> Bill said, "I love pizza."
In the context of this web-site, this is used to indicate code. It has no proper use in normal prose.
Block quotes are for... well blocks of quoted text, usually from previous posts
bold is loud emphasis, e.g. a raised voice, while italics is for adding intensity to a word or phase.
Single quotes are references to the word in its general role, not as a part of the enclosing sentence, i.e. separated from semantics. To use your example:
Does the word 'cheese' indicate something yellow?
The word 'cheese' is no longer food in the sentence. It is a word. You can put any word in this sentence and it would still be proper.
Does the word 'run' indicate something yellow?
Does the word 'as' indicate something yellow?
Does the word 'preposterous' indicate something yellow?
In all cases the term in the single quotes has the same function in the sentence, no matter whether the word itself is a verb, noun, adjective, or whatever. In this sentence all are words, i.e. nouns because they are references indicated by single quotes.
