IMHO Use the italic vresion _or_ italicize it.

Usually, "In my humble/honest opinion".

got it. so your saying it doesn't matter.

what about the term itself? in the days of metal type, did people use the term? or is this something that started as a desktop publishing term?

>cursivating

but when you use the forbidden italic button, your not making it cursive. is cursivating more of a type design thing?

Italicize is an action. So yes, you are choosing to hit a button. I suppose. Or you could be italicizing it by selecting the italic version of the typeface.

Italianize.

First off, we don't say Italicize. If we are making a mechanically derived sloped style is oblique or obliqued.

Second, when you use the italic button, you are either obliqueing the roman or, calling the real italic, depending on the typeface, OS and application.

Thank you, for your visit.

First off, we don’t say Italicize. If we are making a mechanically derived sloped style is oblique or obliqued.

we agree with this statement.

(;

cursivating

"So-and-so started cursivating when they read so-and-so's reply."

obliquating

Compulsory form for fervent quaters.

Who's the decider here?

The word "italicize" certainly predates computer type, and simply means "to print in italics." Its usage is similar to "capitalize." It would be impractical for a grammar and style handbook to avoid straightforward verbs like "capitalize," "italicize" and "underline" when telling you what to do with your words.

Nobody refers to an italicized word as "an italic word," because an Italic word would be one with roots in the Italic family of languages. It's like the difference between an emphatic word (one might say that "preposterous" is an inherently emphatic word) and an emphasized word (you can emphasize any word; it's a thing you do to it when you represent it in sounds or type).

In typophile terms, you can only oblique a glyph, but you can italicize a letter. You italicize a letter by using an italic glyph for that letter.

>are you saying that the (newer) bold button replaces the font with the true bold weight?

No I'm saying that due to the 4 weight family style-linking 'limitation' in Windows GDI, if a true italic or bold exists you're going to get it. You rarely see fake italics in Windows generated content that uses bundled fonts. Exceptions being those families that have no true italic - Comic Sans and Tahoma for example.

> It would be impractical for a grammar and style handbook to avoid straightforward verbs like “capitalize,” “italicize”…

good point.

From the OED (the M-W agrees):

trans. To print in italics, or (in writing) underscore with a single line as a sign that the word or words thus marked are to be so printed, or in order to emphasize or otherwise distinguish them.
1795 PARR Rem. Statem. Combe 78 In p. 17 of his pamphlet the Dr. has printed, but not italicised another inaccuracy. 1858 RUSKIN Arrows of Chace (1880) I. 139 The words which I have italicized in the above extract are those which were surprising to me. 1865 Spectator 28 Jan. 100 The lines we have italicized are lines of very great beauty. 1871-3 EARLE Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 2) §30 There are no words in the Latin answering to the words which are italicised in the English version.

Well put Kevin.

It's also true that in the derivation of a verb from a noun or adjective, the first option to consider is using the word as is, unchanged. So, the word italic could theoretically be used as a verb, which is what happens with underline. So, "Did you underline/italic that phrase?"

But given the choice, people tend to prefer a word which contributes to a pleasant rhythm in sentences (and also perhaps looks good and reads well), even if, considered in isolation on purely grammatical grounds, it contains redundancy.

Underline sounds nice, no need for underlinify or underlinize.

That's my point, Kevin.
And the plural, asterices :-)

: D

them angleised letters

But the French, not too fond of them anglicized letters, ennit?

Sorry, it's in England, Germans don't have stupid trials...