We&#x27;ll settle on the second, then.<p>They look the best as you said and they are also the ones that ∗didn&#x27;t∗ mess with apparent line spacing.<p>Regarding messing with people, use the browser dev tools to replace them with the italics open and end tags, then screenshot the result and say to people, &quot;what are you talking about? looks fine to me&quot; and link said screenshot. I&#x27;m affraid our scheme will soon be thwarted by other HNers though who will jump in to say &quot;yeah, I see asterisk as well&quot; and then someone else will say &quot;they are using a different unicode character&quot;.