this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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There is a reason. The writer is trying to inject the exact tone of this conversation into the writing. If it were written plaintext, the reader could add their own emphasis to the words, and it might come out differently than the artist intended. When I’m making a more passionate point, I put a lot of words in italics—and I use a lot of M dashes. Because it paces exactly what I’m saying to make my point exactly how I want it to sound in your head.
You're right. I don't think it's a good reason and it breaks the flow or gets ignored if used excessively, but it is a reason.
Generally, you only use one emphasized word/phrase per sentence, otherwise the entire thing feels stilted and unnatural.
In panel 3, the only word that really needs to be bolded is "true"; the rest of them just break the flow.
Eh, I’d disagree. And I think this is where it becomes a matter of taste. When I see it, I read it with the emphasis in my head. It does add something for me. Maybe because I choose to do my writing similarly, that this sort of matters to me. You’re probably right that a lot of people overlook it. To each their own, I guess.
It's a matter of taste to a certain extent, but panel three really doesn't make sense. It doesn't match up with how anyone would naturally vocally emphasize that sentence and it doesn't highlight any important meaning either. If you emphasize too many words in a sentence, you get a similar effect to audio compression causing a loss of dynamic range. Humans experience stimulation by contrast: if everything is emphasized, nothing is.
It's also worth noting that italicized text is often a better choice for this kind of emphasis. In any case, the visual noise makes it difficult to read past a certain point.
But think of the way people talk to kids. Exactly like it’s written.
“Sometimes [pause] people will say things juuust to make you feel bad…”
People are very expressive with kids. It’s not baby talk, it’s kid talk. I dunno why people do it, maybe it’s a worry some kids won’t get the point of what’s being said without over the top expressions and spelling out the exact meaning of the sentence with tone. So, to me, that is why this particular one makes sense.
That's a stretch, imo. I've never seen anyone put a conscious effort into verbally emphasizing the less important parts of a sentence to their kids or anyone else. Those poor kids don't deserve that, just like babies don't deserve having their verbalization skills stunted by baby talk.
You’ve never heard anyone try to comfort a kid like that? I mean, maybe your argument against doing it is valid, but that doesn’t mean it’s not super common.
Yes, we all know the reason. Nonetheless.
Well, the person I was replying to didn’t seem to know the reason. They said there was “no reason.”