Writing and Formatting Foreign Words
In order to have your articles published on HubPages' network sites, they have to be written in English. Well, that's just the first step, but you all know what else is required. Though HubPages is published in English, that doesn't mean you'll never use words in other languages.
Did you know there's a proper way to format their usage according to APA Style guidelines?
According to the
official site, the proper way to write foreign words is in italics. APA style uses italics for the "First use of words, phrases, or abbreviations from another language when readers may not be familiar with them; however, if the term appears in a dictionary for the language in which you are writing, do not italicize it."
That means if you're using something like the French phrase mon petit chou, it should be written in italics since that isn't a phrase that is commonly used in English, and the individual words do not appear in English-language dictionaries.
A foreign word that you do not need to italicize would be something like karaoke, which is actually a combination of two Japanese words: kara ("empty") and ookesutora ("orchestra"). The word has infiltrated the American lexicon enough to appear in English-language dictionaries like
Merriam-Webster and, therefore, does not need italics to distinguish it as being in another language.
Did you know?
Merrian-Webster actually notes that it is hard to really pin down an estimate of how many words are in the English language because so many come from other languages and infiltrate English through context and usage (like karaoke discussed above, as well as teriyaki or cannoli). On top of that, other phrases like
port of call have their own dictionary entries, while their individual words also all have entries. How do you account for instances like this when counting the number of words?
However vast you consider the English language to really be, it's undisputed that it is ever-growing and changing and is the most widely spoken in the world!
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