York Herald.[1] One old tradition is maintained: the paper or magazine that prints its own name in its text does so with small capitals.
Names of vessels, as the Kearsarge or the Alabama, are frequently put in italic. The intent of the italic is to differentiate the ships from the places.
Italic is often selected (too often unwisely) for the names of paintings and statues, and for characters in plays, apparently with intent to aid the reader to a better understanding of the subject. In the text of the ordinary book or periodical, Julius Caesar, the man of history, is always set in roman; but Julius Caesar as a personage in a play is usually set in italic. In these attempts to help, profuse italic defeats the purpose of the writer; it spots the text, disfigures the page, and irritates the reader.[2]
PROPER USE OF ITALIC
Although italic often has been misused, it cannot be dispensed with. It can be made a help to good
- ↑ The definite article the, which usually precedes the citation of a journal, need not be capitalized, italicized, or put in quotation-marks. "The New York Herald," "The Evening Journal," are obsolete fashions of citation. These papers are oftener cited without quotation-marks, as the New York Herald or the Evening Journal.
- ↑ For an exhibit of a needless use of italic for words arbitra rily selected, see the extract on page 36, from Rowe Mores's Typographical Founders and Founderies. The Mechanick Exercises of Joseph Moxon, frequently cited in this book, is even more profuse in display. Excess of italic in print, like false emphasis in oratory and profuse underscorings in writing, does not help but hinders understanding.
