Italics And Underlining: Foreign Words In An English Sentence

English has a lot of words – an awful lot of them. There are so many words that it would be unreasonable to expect a person to know them all. Despite having so many words, sometimes a writer will find it easiest to express themselves using a foreign word. Or, perhaps the writer will have to quote someone who spoke a foreign language. Just so the reader doesn’t get confused and think perhaps there’s a new English word that isn’t in the dictionary yet, we italicize foreign words.

I believe chocolate may be my raison d’être.

I don’t know why I like this house so much; it has a certain je ne sais quoi about it.

The small boy accepted the cookie, shyly whispering “Danke” from behind his mother’s skirt.

Lawyers will often do pro bono work for charities or individuals who are desperately in need of legal advice.

When she was a child, Rachel’s Saturday chore was to dust the tchotchkes.