Italics, ligatures, ellipses, small caps, parentheses, and the subhead

- Typeset italics are an elegant way to say,…"These words are different."…Italics are commonly used for titles of things,…like books or movies.…Italics are also used for emphasis,…for adding a little stress, a little oomph…to a word or passage.…In this case, they're being used to set apart a thought,…to let us know what a character is thinking.…Hard to do in video, easy to do in text.…Italics are especially good for these kinds of things…for two reasons, one, they're usually beautiful,…and two, they blend into the flow of the text.…

A typewriter had no italics.…It had two substitutes that are still used,…and you don't want either of them.…One is the underline.…Underlining has always been bad form in typography.…That's because, opposite the gracefulness…of the letter forms, the flowing curves,…and strokes, and terminals,…an underline is just a crude straight line,…clunk, heavy, artless, completely out of character.…On top of that, it collides with the descenders,…so it adds congestion too.…

On the web, of course,…