Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   (Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
> > emphasis. 

> The way I learned it, it's not "cursive" but "italic."  ("Cursive" purely 
> means hand-written words all strung together rather than as block writing. 
> I'm sure you know what I mean.)

  Ah, another example of "false friends" between Finnish and English (that
is, words which seem to be direct equivalents to each other, the Finnish
word seemingly being a direct loan of the English word, but which aren't.

  The finnish word "kursiivi" means italic or oblique (I'm not exactly sure
what the difference is between those two, as I'm not a typographist), while
the English word "cursive" is a completely different word in Finnish
("kaunokirjoitus").

> > maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
> > are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)

> I tend to believe it's just laziness and ignorance over an honest mistake 
> someone was trying not to make. But then I'm cynical. :-)

  Sometimes misusing quotes can result in rather hilarious, albeit unintended,
meanings. http://adamcadre.ac/images/topa4.jpg

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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