Hacker News Reader

Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

Just in case you weren't aware, if you surround a word by asterisks, you can emphasize a word without YELLING

     *hello* there

Becomes

hello there

View on HN

Thank you, for responding in a more productive way than I could have.

Honest question though, when is it ever appropriate to yell? Have you seen people ever do it? I think the all caps could be a useful tool for emphasis. Would I do it though? No.

So! How's your first day on the internet going?

I think yelling is appropriate if someone says they're thinking of building an Electron app. That's the only reason I can think of.

It's never appropriate here.

> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put *asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Of course, uppercase is appropriate for an acronym or initialism that actually is spelled that way, such as SEO in the comment we're replying to.

OK, but how do I surround a word with asterisks as an example to others without emphasizing the word inside?

A backslash before the asterisk makes it appear as an asterisk

\*this\* becomes *this*.

And before you ask, to show the backslash, you add another backslash. \\*this\\* becomes \*this\*

I did not know you could backslash-escape asterisks (TIL! thanks!), so I prepended it with 4 spaces to make a code block.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com