Italic facts for kids
Italic is a special way of writing or printing letters. It looks like handwriting that slants a little to the right. You often see italic text in books, magazines, and on the internet.
Italic writing has a long and interesting history. It all started with people writing by hand.
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The Story of Italic Writing
A long time ago, in Italy, there was a talented scribe (a person who writes documents by hand) named Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi. He lived from 1475 to 1527. Arrighi created a beautiful, flowing handwriting style. This style became known as "italic" because it came from Italy!
Today, people who study beautiful handwriting, called "calligraphers," still learn from Arrighi's work. His style was a modern version of an older handwriting style called "Chancery hand." Roman scribes (writers) first made this style popular in the early 1500s.
When printing presses were invented, people wanted to make printed books look as elegant as handwritten ones. So, they created special typefaces (sets of letters) that copied Arrighi's italic handwriting. These early italic typefaces were first designed in Italy.
Sometimes, you might see "oblique" type. This is similar to italic because the letters also slant. However, the letters in oblique type don't change their shape as much as true italic letters do. Many simple, modern fonts use oblique type instead of true italics.
Why We Use Italic Text
Italic text is used for several reasons in modern writing:
- Emphasis: It can make certain words or phrases stand out. It's like underlining words when you're writing by hand to show they are important.
- Titles: It's often used for the titles of books, movies, songs, or works of art. For example, you might write Harry Potter or Star Wars.
- Foreign Words: If you use a word from another language, you might write it in italics.
- Placeholders: Sometimes, italics are used to show where information is missing or needs to be filled in.
How to Make Text Italic
It's easy to make text italic, especially when you're writing online.
On Websites (HTML)
When people create websites, they use a special code called HTML. To make text italic, they put the text between `` and `` tags. For example, `hello` would show up as hello.
In Wiki Articles (Wikitext)
On wiki websites, like this one, it's even simpler! You just put two apostrophes () before and after the text you want to make italic. For example, important will look like important.
Related pages
Images for kids
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The Aldine Press Virgil of 1501, in italic
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Arrighi's original italic typeface, around 1527. Back then, italic capital letters hadn't been designed yet.
See also
In Spanish: Itálica (desambiguación) para niños
