Formatting Questions -- Advice

[Renoard]

I look into the abyss of my Turabian and find that transliterated words require double emphasis.  Typically I use bold and itallic.  Most publisher's get pevish about emphasis, "Underline or itallicize! Pick one and stay with it!"  That's fine if you need the same emphasis for one particular word or another.  But (pardon the expression) zonah, what a predicament when I need to pull in a sanskrit word like Yahu or a Khemetian word like Khutschgaptakh.  Oh the agony.

On the serious side any, I'd like advice on how to best format for transliteration, and submission.  When the word in question hasn't been absorbed into the English language the style guides call for double emphasis but I suspect a lot of editors won't see the distinction.

[ryos]

Apply a style rule (assuming of course that you're using a program that has them) to your emphasized words - one for single and another for double emphasis. Then, when you prepare your manuscript for submission, you can change the formatting of all your emphases by changing the rule.

I say this because, as you say, editors are not consistent on this point, so you want to be able to change things easily for the preferences of whoever you're sending to.

Edit: Also, this probably should have been posted in "Writing Group".

Edit 2: ...aaand, now it is.

[Renoard]

Well silk moved this from Reading Excuses.  I added it over there mostly because it seemed pertinent to the submissions.  So remember while it's here, try to associate it with RE submissions if you can.  If I ever get around to submitting it'll be relevant to me. 

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Transliterated words don't require double emphasis in Chicago style. Honestly, I think double emphasis is silly.

In manuscript, double emphasis is no emphasis. For example, if you have an emphasized word within an emphasized paragraph, that word is emphasized by setting it in roman.

[Renoard]

Ah I don't mean where the emphasized word is in a body of emphasized text.  I'm referring to quotations or words which appear in the foreign language but which are then transliterated into Roman characters.  For instance if I were to write hasefer chayim in the middle of a block of english.  Most style guides I've consulted required that this be itallicized and bold.

[Silk]

Yeah, I'm on it, Ryos.

Most of the general writing questions go here. There are probably people who would benefit from threads like this who don't necessarily pay attention to what goes down on the RE forum. Since Ookla posted and hasn't scolded me for moving it, I'm guessing Ryos and I were correct.

[Renoard]

I wasn't bucking the descision just trying to get posts that would help.

I appreciate what Ook wrote and am not particularly kicking against that either, just looking for clarification.

So  Ookla you would have a problem with a passage like:
The man spoke softly as he read aloud the names written on the Hassefer Chayim.  Curls of blue smoke bled between the fingers of his clenched fist.

Not because it's campy and contains a redundancy but because of the emphasis style on the transliterated passage?

[Renoard]

And You're right, Chicago does not in fact call for bold italic for transliteration.  I'm not sure now where I saw such a thing.

I guess boredom got the better of me.  I really didn't have time to waste on this topic. . . 

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Silk, I can't even see the Reading Excuses forum due to a forum bug, so if there's anything anyone ever wants me to answer, it has to be in this forum.

Renoard, in manuscript format for a science fiction novel there may be very rare places where it's acceptable to use bolded text, but this instance isn't one of them. I focused on the formatting issue because this is a thread about formatting. And I did know that you weren't referring to emphasized words inside of emphasized paragraphs but I just gave that as an example of double emphasis.

[Shaggy]

From a reader's standpoint, I find bolded type extremely annoying (and underlined, too, to a lesser extent) to read in books. I find it pulls me out of the story. The only time I, personally, would ever use bolded/underlined type in a novel was if I was illustrating a sign/letter/etc., almost like a picture. Which, I have to say, I have never done, and do not plan on doing so.