Saturday, March 29, 2008

Italics

Italics comes from "Italy". Why is that? Apparently an Italian guy wrote that way:

"from L. italicus "Italian;" so called because it was introduced in 1501 by Aldus Manutius, printer of Venice (who also gave his name to Aldine), and first used in an edition of Virgil dedicated to Italy. Earlier (1571) the word was used for the plain, sloping style of handwriting, as opposed to Gothic. Italicize "to print in italics" (for emphasis, etc.) is from 1795." (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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