Serious writing (in the Latin script) needs italics

[text at sdfeu.org]

On 2020-11-26 13:19, Katarina Eriksson wrote:
> Gemtext is limited similarly to typewriters in that they don't
> typically support italics. How did they express emphasis on
> typewriters? On the other hand, the output of typewriters wasn't meant
> to be accessible to screen readers.
> 
> I have already listed a bunch of different ways to convey the same
> thing as you would with italics and their drawbacks.

This Nov 10 post contains a fine list, mentioning capitalization, 
all-uppercase, letter-spacing, extra space/newline around word/sentence 
– similar ideas as listed in Wikipedia on methods of typographic 
emphasis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphasis_(typography)#Methods_and_use

I wouldn't mind clients opting for a distinctive rendering like e. g. 
Thunderbird's so-called Structured Text in plain text e-mail, which 
suggests *bold* and /italic/ and _underlined_ text – optionally 
(mail.display_struct, default:true) rendered bold/italic/underlined, but 
without deleting any chars as I experience it. Jargon File "Hacker 
Writing Style" is mentionend following a ref there:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plain_text_e-mail_%28Thunderbird%29#Structured_Text
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_and_news_settings – mail.display_struct