Ben Myers Campaigns against Unnecessarily Slanted Words

This is funny, but also points to a genuine issue of modern communication: The felt need to ram home your point instead of trusting the reader to do the work of appropriating it for themselves.

The overuse of italics has, today, reached plague proportions. Writers sprinkle their sentences with italics merely because they would like you to notice these particular words. But if I am reading the sentence, how could I fail to notice those particular words? Why, author, do you need to give me such emphatic and overbearing guidance? I am already reading your sentence; I am already committed to it; I am already willing to hear what you have to say.