Matters of Style in Writing

[ancusmitis]

Writing is something I'm very interested in, and while I don't agree with the notion of "right and wrong" in producing language--to me it conveys a sense of immorality for divergence, which I don't agree with--I do like to maintain a generally conventional style. Or, as my Women in American Literature professor puts it, "style is a code." Everything means something. Good grammar isn't good because it is morally upstanding, but because it is clear and generally well-understood.

Good style recommends Italics for
1) words from foreign languages that have not been naturalized (so merde must be italicised, but not façade. Even though both are French, one has been naturalized, the other hasn't)
2) Titles of novels, collections, movies, and periodicals.

These things are not in italics because italicization is the right thing to do, but to set these things off as notable. So if the title of a periodical or collection contains the title of a novel or epic poem, then the convention is to take the novel's title out of italics. Consider Reading Virgil: Aeneid I and II. (An actual textbook that I have used, by the way).

Further, titles and foreign words that are part of direct thoughts in a novel (for example, ****, he thought, I am being way too estupidamente nerdy about this) or anything else that is conventionally italicized will lose their italics--again, to set them off.

So how do you quote the title of a foreign work? Logically, it should lose its italics since it is italics within italics, but then it wouldn't be set off at all. Which rule should you break?

 

[Sass]

Hmm, I would break the rule and put the title in italics within the italics, mainly for continuity and ease-on-the-eyes reasons.

I edit for a living (and write a bit too), and with this stuff I tend to err on the side of editing like a reader - is it easy to read, does it interrupt the flow to follow the rules?

To use your example, I would say '****, he thought, I am being way too estupidamente, nerdy about this.' I'd use a comma instead of removing the italics, to give the reader a pause in which to consider the unfamiliar word.