[Doc-SIG] formalizing StructuredText

Edward Welbourne Edward Welbourne <eddy@chaos.org.uk>
Sat, 31 Mar 2001 11:10:15 +0100 (BST)


> to *only* allow a *single* word to be emphasized.  If you want to
> emphasize multiple words you have to *do* *it* *like* *this*.
excellent idea ;^)

You're emphasising those words, and having to do it for *each* of the
words emphasised is so much more *emphatic*, after all.

If what's to be emphasised isn't *short*, *sharp* and *to* *the*
*point*, it's a waste of emphasis - declaring too many things to be
important is like crying wolf (or declaring too many things to be
dangerous), it squanders a useful communication idiom - the reader will
be more apt to ignore the request to regard the marked text as
`important'.

> at once anyway.  *It just looks weird, and is hard to read, if you try
> to emphasize a big region.*

and anyway:

    If you have something important to say, but no terse expression of
    it, consider presenting it as an inset paragraph

(e.g. one inside a blockquote) instead of leaving it, coloured or not,
embedded in some other paragraph.  The very abruptness of the resulting
break in the text will emphasise it amply, without colouring - thereby
leaving colouring available, within the inset paragraph, for local
tweaks such as colouring is well suited to expressing.

	Eddy.