Tuesday, July 3, 2018

The Movement To NOT Italicize Foreign Words

First, watch this brilliant video by Daniel José Older



Second, check out this Quartzy article, Bilingual Authors Are Challenging the Practice of Italicizing Non-English Words by Thu-Huong Ha.

Third, think about how you handle non-English words in your manuscript. Are you unnecessarily "othering" the people who speak that language? It's a practice worth taking another, more critical, look at.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

2 comments:

Susan said...

I disagree. I write in English. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Hindustani, Chinese, ANY other language are NOT English, so by definition they are 'the other' and therefore should be designated as such by italics. I will continue to italicize any and all non-English words. If nothing else, it serves to signal that this is a perfectly good word, just not one in English, and is neither a made-up word nor a misspelling.

Kathy Otten said...

I agree with Susan.