Posted by Ian Gregory on 11/16/40 11:36

On 2006-01-04, Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> wrote:

> different newsgroups maybe? Of course, if someone uses slashes and
> someone else uses underscores, it's to bring attention to what's between
> them; however, we really don't know what the poster had meant by them,
> do we--and does it really matter whether I emphasize with /slashes/,
> with _underscores_, or with *asterisks*? You know that it's for
> emphasis.

Well reading your post in slrn (text mode newsreader) the word
"slashes" in the above paragraph appears as normal text, the
word "underscores" is underlined, and the word "asterisks" is
in bold. Since slrn makes a pretty good attempt to do what is
right this seems to indicate that underscores and asterisks
in Usenet conventionally mean underline and bold respectively,
but my understanding has always been that they were just
alternative ways of indicating emphasis. As to what slashes
mean I have no idea - I have never noticed them being used
on Usenet until I read this thread (and I have been a Usenet
user since the late 80s). Of course the other way of indicating
emphasis is to use caps, but that is usually referred to as
SHOUTING.

> About the only time it might make a difference is if you're typing
> something that would be italicized in print, such as the title of a book.

What about reverse italic, or sans serif, or bold italic
sans serif? It could get silly - most people just accept
the limitations of plain text and use it anyway because
of the great advantages of universality and compactness.

Ian

--
Ian Gregory
http://www.zenatode.org.uk/ian/

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