Bold vs. Italicized vs. Underlined

Here comes the most important debate of our decade: what is the best to use: bold, italicized, or underlined.

Let’s look at a variety of factors to see which one emphasizer is the best to use: 1) Ink/Octopuses 2) Paper/Environment 3) Attractiveness 4) Modernity

Part 1) Ink & Octopuses

In terms of saving ink, italicizing is the best way to save your ink if you’re really cheap. By italicizing you’re still spelling out the same amount of letters and thus taking up the same amount of ink. However, by bolding and making that same word darker, you’re wasting more ink space. By underlining, you place a __________ underneath the word and thus waste more ink.

Thus because of ink, Italicizing +1.

Part 2: Paper & The Environment

In terms of what saves actual paper, let’s take a look at the factors. Because bolding makes the text bigger, the word ultimately takes more paper and thus is costly for environmental reasons. Italicizing slightly skews the text at an 30 degree angle, thus making more usage of the paper than normal text would. HOWEVER, By underlining you take up the same amount of space by placing the __________ underneath the word.

Thus because of paper, Underlining + 1

Part 3) Attractiveness.

I’m not going to lie. By using the “bold” in my own blog, I am stating my preference – bold is more attractive to the eye. It pops out way more than underlined, and even more so than italicizing. By italicizing sometimes you are unable to noticeably see the difference. Underlining allows the word to stand out, but still not in the same manner boldness does.

Thus because of its attractiveness, bold + 1.

Part 4) Modernity

It all comes down to this. Back before typewriters existed, by bolding and underlining a word you could exemplify its emphasis. Bolding occurs when you retype a word onto the same page on a typewriter while underlining requires typing an underscore underneath the word. You could not italicize on a typewriter. Because typewriters are pretty much outdated, and computers are pretty hip, italicizing is differently a more modern technique for expressing emphasis.

Thus, italicizing +2.

By looking at everything, italicizing wins. However, it’s all up to personal preference, so I choose bold as my favorite. What do you choose?