: Re: How can I stress a certain word in a medium that doesn't allow for font embellishments? Many of us probably encountered it before on a social media like Facebook or Twitter, or in the comments

@Gloria285

Vote Up Vote Down

Writing a word in ALL CAPS might be frowned upon because it is considered a visual equivalent of shouting, but shouting is a spoken form of emphasis, so ALL CAPS might be just what you need.

Internet tradition (dating back to list serves, etc.) has used the underbar as a signal for italics: I will _never_ eat another steak. The underbar harkens back to typing and handwriting (remember that?), when underlined text indicated what in print would be rendered in italics. Some social sites, like Google+, will automatically render _text bounded by underbars_ in italics.

Likewise, the star or asterisk ( * ) has traditionally been used to bound text that should be considered boldface.

So you might tweet:

*George R.R. Martin* is executive producer of HBO's _Game of Thrones_ because he wrote the books, but *George Martin* produced _Abbey Road_ and many other Beatle albums.

But the best way to emphasize words lies within the words themselves, but that's a topic for another day (or an exercise left for the reader).

(0)

Login to post a comment!