Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:47:44 -0500
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: gah! let's try that again - Re: google word list
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 12/20/2010 8:45 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

>  This list has always been intended for plain text and fixed-width
>  fonts. Please look up how to get your email program to behave
>  properly.

I'm fine with plain text, but I draw the line at fixed-width fonts, all
of which look ugly on a monitor screen, and I don't regard them as
necessary for getting my email program (Thunderbird) to behave
properly.  We're living in nearly the second decade of the 21st century
now, Keith, not the eighth decade of the 20th century.  I find it odd
that a man as much into personal computers as you are has chosen to
remain in their early years of development, softwear, etc.

However, and more to the point, what failed you in your misguided
attempt to underline a word with symbols a line below it is the simple
fact that each of us has undoubtedly chosen a different number of
characters for line-wrapping (width of right-hand margins; a wide or
narrow column of type), if we've chosen any at all, with the result that
it was very unlikely that your "underlining" would end up under the word
you wished.  There are of course far easier and more obvious ways to
emphasize a word, from the old fashioned "[sic]" to using an asterisk on
each end of the word (puts it into boldface in some email clients, like
mine; otherwise provides a form of emphasis which dates back to
typewriter days), or putting an underline at each end of the word (which
will induce underlining under the word in some clients but otherwise, to
my eye, looks clunky).  And forward slashes bookending a word will put
it into Italics....

--Ted White