In most contexts roman type is the standard typeface used for text matter, but it can be varied, for reasons of emphasis, additional clarity, or common convention, through the use of other typographic styles or forms. Each of these—italic, roman text in quotation marks, bold, capitals and small capitals, and underlining—is used to indicate a departure of some sort from normal text or to alert the reader to interpret the words so distinguished in a particular way. Initial capitals are also used to delineate particular classes of word; see Chapter 5.
All internal punctuation within a phrase or work title set in a different type style is set in that style, including colons between titles and subtitles, and exclamation or question marks that form part of the quoted matter. Punctuation not belonging to the phrase or title is set in roman. Ensure that formatting is precise.
Have you read Westward Ho!?
In the exclamation mark is in italics because it is part of the title, but the question mark is in roman because it belongs to the surrounding context. Similarly, the plurals s and es and the possessive ’s affixed to italicized or other typographically distinguished words are set in roman:
several old Economists and New Yorkers
the Majestic’s crew
They are set in the variant typography where they form part of the word:
It’s not John’s fault but Mary’s
We fitted several of the blancs in our luggage
Occasionally it may be necessary to indicate italics in text that is already italicized, especially in foreign text. In this instance the opposite font—roman type—is chosen:
Discuss the principle caveat emptor in common-law jurisdictions
He hissed, ‘Do you have the slightest idea how much trouble you’ve caused?’
Some publishers indicate italics in italicized text by putting it within quotation marks:
A study of Dickens’s ‘Hard Times’
Not all styles do this, however, especially in blocks of italic text, such as a caption.
Within italic titles Oxford style does not convert to roman any material that would be italic in open text (for example ships’ names or other work titles):
The Voyage of the Meteor (not The Voyage of the Meteor)
but other styles do. Where italic type is shown on hard copy by underlining or italic type, editors should indicate the opposite font by encircling the word or words and inserting the ‘change italic to roman type’ mark (see Appendix Proofreading marks) in the margin.
Use of underlining in this context is not recommended: see 7.6. For a further discussion of titles within titles see 8.2.8.
Italic type is used to indicate emphasis or stress; to style titles, headings, indexes, and cross-references; to indicate foreign words and phrases; and in specific technical contexts (see Chapter 14).
Setting type in italics indicates emphasis by setting off a word or phrase from its context:
An essay’s length is less important than its content
I don’t care how you get here, just get here
Such style, such grace, is astounding
Employ italics sparingly for emphasis. It may be better to achieve the same effect by making the emphasis clear through the sentence structure, or by using intensifying adjectives and adverbs:
The actual purpose of her letter remained a mystery
rather than
The purpose of her letter remained a mystery
Italic may also be used to highlight a word, phrase, or character where it is itself the object of discussion:
| the letter z | spell labour with a u | the past tense of go is went |
Quotation marks may also be used in this way (see 7.3 below): decide which will be clearer and more intelligible to the reader, and apply that style consistently in comparable contexts.
Technical or recently coined terms and words being introduced, defined, or assigned a special meaning are often italicized at first mention:
The unit of cultivation was the strip … a bundle of strips made up what was known as a furlong
a pair of endocrine structures termed the adrenal glands
Bold type is also used for this purpose in some contexts (see 7.4 below).
When an author or editor adds italics to a quotation for emphasis, indicate that this has been done by adding ‘my italics’, ‘author’s italics’, or ‘italics added’ in square brackets after the italicized word or words, or in parentheses at the end of the quotation or in the relevant footnote or endnote. (Using ‘my emphasis’ or ‘emphasis added’ is an acceptable alternative where italics are the only form of emphasis used.)
The committee had decided not to put it in the petition, ‘but intimate it to the prince’ (BL, Harley MS 6383, fo. 122a: my italics)
Italic type is used in English texts for words and phrases that are still regarded as foreign or need to be distinguished from identical English forms:
the catenaccio defensive system employed by the Italians
an amuse-gueule of a tiny sardine mounted on a crisp crouton
When a foreign word becomes naturalized into English (that is, no longer regarded as distinctively foreign) it is usually printed in roman like other English words:
the phrase is repeated ad nauseam throughout the book
Mortimer describes the scene with characteristic brio
Convention and context rather than logic determine when foreign words are sufficiently assimilated into English to be printed in roman type. In modern English the use of italics for foreign words is less prevalent than it used to be, and newly adopted foreign terms may pass into roman text very quickly. The best advice is to treat any one item consistently within a given text and follow the newest edition of a suitable dictionary, such as the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors or the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Take into account also the subject’s conventions and the intended readers’ expectations: if in doubt over the degree of assimilation of a particular word, the more cautious policy is to italicize, but in a work written for specialists whose terminology it may be a part of, it may be wiser not to.
On the other hand, consistency or context may require words normally romanized in general English to revert to italicization (or, as in German, capitalization), to avoid their looking out of place among related but less assimilated foreign words.
A coup d’état depends upon the predisposition of the people to accept the fait accompli [fait accompli].
It is also sometimes important to go on italicizing a foreign word, however familiar, where there is an English word with the same spelling, as with Land for a province of Germany or pension for a Continental boarding house.
When a word is sufficiently assimilated to be printed in roman, it may still retain its accents, as with ‘pâté’, ‘plié’, and ‘crèche’; or it may lose them, as with ‘cafe’, ‘denouement’, ‘elite’, and ‘facade’ (these forms are the ones shown in current Oxford dictionaries).
Foreign words assimilated into English tend to lose gender inflections, so that the English ‘rentier’—now assimilated into the language in roman type—applies to both male and female, though the French feminine form of rentier is rentière. While in English the default gender is normally masculine, the dominant anglicized form of some words may be the feminine one: an example is ‘blonde’, which in British English is the usual form for both sexes, although ‘blond’ is still sometimes used for a man and is the dominant US form.
The explanation or translation of a foreign word or phrase may be presented in any of a number of ways, using roman type in quotation marks or parentheses, as appropriate:
bracchium means ‘arm’
Old French dangier is derived from Latin dominium ‘power’, ‘authority’, which is the basic sense of Middle English daunger
Napoleon said England was a nation of boutiquiers (shopkeepers)
Complicated contexts will require greater diversity: any sensible system is acceptable so long as it is consistently applied and is clear to the reader.
Foreign proper names are not italicized, even when cited in their original language:
| rue St-Honoré | Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma |
Work titles are discussed fully in Chapter 8. Use italics for titles of books, periodicals, plays, films, TV and radio series, and music albums:
| The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test | Past & Present |
| Look Back in Anger | West Side Story |
| Fawlty Towers | La dolce vita |
Italics are used for long poems (those of book length, or divided into books or cantos), but roman in quotation marks is used for shorter poems, songs, articles, and individual episodes in broadcast series. The titles of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art are also italicized, as are titles of operas, oratorios, collections of songs, etc.
Italic type is also found in the following contexts:
Quotation marks are discussed at 4.14 and 9.2.3. They are used with roman type in the titles of short poems, songs, chapters in books, articles, and individual episodes in broadcast series; the names of the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, and other religious texts and their subdivisions are written in roman without quotation marks. They are also used to distinguish colloquialisms in formal contexts and to give the implication ‘so-called’.
Bold or boldface is a thick typeface like this. Bold type is indicated on hard copy by a wavy underline. Where a distinction is to be made between two bold typefaces (e.g. bold and semibold), the convention is to use a double wavy line for bold and a single one for semibold.
Bold may be used instead of italic to highlight a newly introduced term, often one that is going to be defined or explained:
Percale is a fine weave that produces a relatively fine and strong fabric for sheets.
The Pharisees were sincere and pious Jews … The Sadducees were a group of aristocratic Jews … The Essenes had serious disagreements with both the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
This device is used particularly in textbooks, guidebooks, and other educational or instructional texts, less so in more literary contexts:
The village of Avrolles (14 km), where the road changes from D943 to D905, has a church with a detached bell tower.
Bold is often used for headwords in dictionaries and encyclopedias; for certain components of citations in bibliographies and reference lists; in indexes to draw attention to types of reference or important references; to indicate cross-referencing generally; for vectors and matrix symbols in science and mathematics; and in titles and headings.
Avoid using bold for emphasis in the course of normal printed matter, as the effect is usually too startling in running text; avoid typographical distinction altogether, or prefer instead the less obtrusive italic.
Full capitals are usually used for initialisms (MA, ECG, RSS; see Chapter 10), and for people known by their initials (JFK, J. K. Rowling; see Chapter 6); acronyms may be all capitals or initial capital (UNESCO/Unesco; see also 10.2.4 and 21.4.4).
The use of initial capitals is discussed in Chapter 5.
Full capitals (and small capitals) may be used for displaying text on half-title and title pages, for logos and imprints, and for other types of special presentation and display. They are indicated on hard copy by a triple underline. In word processing prefer upper case to the attribute ‘All Caps’.
Full capitals are usually too prominent to be used for emphasis in open text, but they are sometimes used, as are small capitals, to mimic inscriptions or to reproduce original orthography:
The earliest Scandinavian coins, inscribed ‘CNVT REX ÆNOR’ (‘Cnut, king of Danes’), seem to have been struck … no later than 1015
Small capitals are about two-thirds the size of large capitals, as in THIS STYLE OF TYPE, and are indicated on hard copy by a double underline. In typography, the term ‘even s. caps.’ instructs that the word(s) should be set entirely in small capitals, rather than a combination of capitals and small capitals.
Although small capitals are traditionally used in a number of set contexts, which are described below, they are not available in certain typefaces. It is possible to reduce capital letters to the size of small capitals, but this method is not suitable for ebooks and other electronic publications. For a text that requires a great many small capitals, a typeface that already includes them should be selected.
The main uses of small capitals are as follows:
sing the praises of see PRAISE
CECILY When I see a spade I call it a spade.
GWENDOLEN I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade.
le XIème [or XIe] siècle
In word processor files, do not use underlining when italic is intended. Underlining text on hard copy or proofs indicates that it is to be set in italics. When underlining matter in this way, ensure that the underlining includes all matter that is to be italicized, but nothing else. Mistakes are particularly common with internal and surrounding punctuation. Consider:
‘The novel Bell, Book, and Candle’, not ‘The novel Bell, Book, and Candle’
‘The colours were red, white, and blue’, not ‘The colours were red, white, and blue’
In typeset material it is undesirable to use underlining, as it cuts through the descenders of the characters and in some typefaces may obscure the identity of similar letters (g and q, for example). Italic type is preferable as a distinguishing mark, though in some cases underlining is required or is uniquely useful—for example in some scientific and mathematical notation, or in the precise reproduction of a manuscript, inscription, or correspondence, where it is needed to approximate underlining in the original.
As underscoring on hard copy or proofs indicates to the typesetter that italic is wanted, any instances where underlining is required must be marked in a different way: for example, with a highlighted underscore, which can be explained to the designer and typesetter in a note.
In non-print contexts such as websites avoid underlining as a substitute for (or in addition to) italics to indicate work titles or for emphasis, as users expect underlining to indicate a hyperlink. Browsers have their own styles for the display of hyperlinks so it is not necessary to add underlining to links in copy.