3 ms·

Is this _emphasis_ a meme I'm not aware of, or are you just copying the parent's particular usage?

sbierwagen 10y ago
It's common convention that's a couple decades old at this point, also included in markdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#Example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#Example RFC 7, from May 1969, used it: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7.txt
- CydeWeys 10y ago
  Correction on that RFC: The 1969 version was handwritten, and likely did not use underscores for emphasis (who does that in handwriting?). It was typed up electronically in what looks to be 2002, and plenty of examples of the underscore notation exist prior to then.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    Not in handwriting but on typewriters, which didn't have italics. Underlining text was used for emphasis on typewritten documents. Which is probably the origin of this convention. You can't underline in plain ASCII either, so people started putting underline characters _around_ words instead.
55555 10y ago
I do this sometimes. It's like a form of underlining when underlining isn't supported. Also, I think people get the habit from using Markdown, which uses _this_ for emphasis.
chillacy 10y ago
Oops, I've been writing too much Markdown!
wcummings 10y ago
People use it all the time on IRC.
BrandonY 10y ago
Well great, I feel super old now.
NamTaf 10y ago
It's old emphasis from at least the IRC heyday era (where I picked it up), likley earlier as some of the sibling comments allude to. Interesting, HN takes asterisk characters around text and parses it to italics like this, but I tended to know that as meaning bold font emphasis, with /this/ as italics. Regardless, it's certainly an old habit
- jacobolus 10y ago
  It’s a computer-era simulation of the 100 (?) year-old convention of using underline to represent emphasis in typewritten documents. Or maybe the same convention might have even been used before typewriters, to mark up manuscripts? (A manuscript needs clear instructions to the typesetter, because someone’s handwriting might not make the distinction between Roman and Italic scripts immediately obvious.)

It's common convention that's a couple decades old at this point, also included in markdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#Example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#Example RFC 7, from May 1969, used it: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7.txt

CydeWeys 10y ago
Correction on that RFC: The 1969 version was handwritten, and likely did not use underscores for emphasis (who does that in handwriting?). It was typed up electronically in what looks to be 2002, and plenty of examples of the underscore notation exist prior to then.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Not in handwriting but on typewriters, which didn't have italics. Underlining text was used for emphasis on typewritten documents. Which is probably the origin of this convention. You can't underline in plain ASCII either, so people started putting underline characters _around_ words instead.

55555 10y ago

I do this sometimes. It's like a form of underlining when underlining isn't supported. Also, I think people get the habit from using Markdown, which uses _this_ for emphasis.

chillacy 10y ago

Oops, I've been writing too much Markdown!

wcummings 10y ago

People use it all the time on IRC.

BrandonY 10y ago

Well great, I feel super old now.

NamTaf 10y ago

It's old emphasis from at least the IRC heyday era (where I picked it up), likley earlier as some of the sibling comments allude to. Interesting, HN takes asterisk characters around text and parses it to italics like this, but I tended to know that as meaning bold font emphasis, with /this/ as italics. Regardless, it's certainly an old habit

jacobolus 10y ago
It’s a computer-era simulation of the 100 (?) year-old convention of using underline to represent emphasis in typewritten documents. Or maybe the same convention might have even been used before typewriters, to mark up manuscripts? (A manuscript needs clear instructions to the typesetter, because someone’s handwriting might not make the distinction between Roman and Italic scripts immediately obvious.)