title: What is the proper way to style text as italic?
body: <p>Apparently, the <code>&lt;i&gt;</code> tag no longer tells the browser to display text in italics, but rather that the enclosed text "<a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/i" rel="nofollow noreferrer">is set off from the normal text for some reason</a>":</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The &lt;i&gt; tag should represent a range of text with a different semantic meaning whose typical typographic representation is italicized.  This means a browser will typically still display its contents in italic type, but is, by definition, no longer required to.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Following this new semantic interpretation of this tag, what is the proper way to style a range of text as italic?</p>
  
  <pre><code>i {font-style: italic}
  i .italic {font-style: italic}
  span .italic {font-style: italic}
  ... ?
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Let's assume I want to style the text as italic for non-semantic reasons, e.g. for aesthetic purposes. For example, I might want to italicize the first three words in every chapter (instead of using the <a href="https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9252/capitalized-opening-lines">conventional small caps</a>).</p>