> To dramatically reduce ambiguities, we can remove the doubled character delimiters for strong emphasis. Instead, use a single _ for regular emphasis, and a single * for strong emphasis.<p>I would love to see * gone but I must note that _ is <i>annoyingly</i> hard to type on a screen keyboard.<p>Back in the days of USENET one common choice was using a / to delimit /emphasis/ - the usual reading was that this indicated words that would normally be rendered as /italics/. You'd often see it used to indicate the titles of books and movies, as well, since the typographical convention was typically that these were italicized as well - note that both <em> and <cite> typically render as italics, for instance. I have <i>always</i> disliked Markdown's choice to use * as a delimiter for both italics and bold; / always implied italics to me, and * always implied bold.<p>Anyway. I propose that / would be a much better delimiter for emphasis than _. On a US keyboard, it can be typed without a shift key. And on a US IOS screen keyboard, it is a simple swipe on B, versus shifting to the numeric entry page and swiping on &.