Sandman
"The boldfaced words were originally typed inside asterisks, to indicate emphasis in text that sticks to ASCII characters"

You don't have to use caps or asterisks, but using quotation marks is non-standard and mocked as only being used by illiterate people, so having the suggestion come from you is endlessly funny.

Eric Stevens
Actually, as you will know, the use of single emphatic quotation marks is standard, as are *asterisks* and _underlining_, although underlining is less common in recent years.

Sandman
Please show me some examples.

Eric Stevens
Read Usenet.

Sandman
So you have nothing? I knew that of course. You do that a lot, join a dicussion armed with nothing.

Eric Stevens
You are flanneling, as usual. Anyone who has read Usenet for more than a few days will know that "the use of single emphatic quotation marks is standard, as are *asterisks* and _underlining_," although they may not immediately realise that "underlining is less common in recent years."