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To make something stand out

When you want to make something stand out in a sentence, you can use italics to emphasise it more than the other words in the sentence. Sometimes this can be used to give the reader some idea of the tone of the sentence - whether it’s sarcastic, or genuine, or worried. Compare these two sentences that a school student might say when they find out that one of their friends has stayed at home sick:

I wonder what he’s doing now?

I wonder what he’s doing now?

The first sentence is a simple statement, indicating that the person is wondering what his sick friend is doing at home.

The second sentence though is different - the verb is in italics, indicating that there is extra emphasis on it. It’s still up to the reader to interpret what this means, but if I was reading it, I might think one of these two things:

  • The italics mean that the person really, really wants to know what their friend is doing at home; they aren’t just idly wondering.

  • The other way I might take it is that the person doesn’t really believe their friend is at home or sick. The italics in this case make the sentence sarcastic.

Italics are a great way to convey sarcasm in writing. When you’re talking, it’s easy to change the tone of your voice to get the message across if you’re being sarcastic. On paper, it’s harder, but italics can help. Following on from the last set of example sentences:

Jeremy:

Bob’s sick at home is he?

Simon:

Yeah, that’s what his mum said.

Jeremy:

Oh really?

Simon:

Yeah.

If you read the above conversation, then you’d probably interpret it as Jeremy just double checking that what he heard Simon say was correct. However, if you put italics in the right place, you get a different meaning:

Jeremy:

Bob’s sick at home is he?

Simon:

Yeah that’s what his mum said.

Jeremy:

Oh really?

Simon:

Yeah.

The extra emphasis on the word ‘really’ adds a certain tone to the conversation. I’d now interpret this as Jeremy not really believing that Bob is actually sick, hence the sarcastic ‘Oh really’ statement.