This isn’t really a blogging software issue, but an HTML issue.  If you were to do all of this in straight HTML and forgot an italics closing tag, then everything after would also remain italicized; in fact, I’ve done this, and it can be one of the most infuriating things to troubleshoot.

The problem is that you’re giving the browser a specific command for display, and never telling it when to stop - so it does exactly what you said - no more, no less - continues on in italics.  The browser doesn’t know what a blog post is, after all.

In ExpressionEngine, one could create a plugin that parses a field for any open tags and closes them, so that the damage is restricted only to the post where the closing tag is forgotten.  In fact, there are plugins like TruncHTML which do this - but in relationship to character limiting, so that an open tag is not accidentally left open simply because one limits the amount of text being output.

So the solution is to find a plugin that checks through an entry for any open HTML tags and closes them before moving on to the next post.  =)

Lisa is right - it’s a simple HTML issue.
One way around it might be to write the block of text you want to italicise and only then select it and italicise it, rather than toggling italics on when you begin the passage and then forgetting toggle it off at the other end.

A good practice to get into is to use the EE formatting buttons.  That way, a closing tag is automatically added along with the opening tag.

The blogging software does know what a blog post is, and for that reason it should not allow you to use unrestricted HTML. Blogging software should look for tags that have not been closed and either close the tag automatically at the end of the post (so that the italics disease goes to the end of the post, but not the entire blog) or generate an error message and refuse to post the item until you fix it. Blogger now does this (generates an error message and tells you to fix it). As to why Moveable type and Expression engine don’t, I really have no idea.

Thanks peeps.  Very interesting and informative.

By the by, I posted a comment on Adriana’s blog just now about this, before reading the above comments.  And then another comment pointing out that my first comment had also appeared entirely in italics.  As did that second comment of course.

Michael’s answer strikes me as the basic answer I was looking for.  Good for Blogger.  Add WordPress (Adriana’s blog software) to the list of shame.

Is there any good reason why Blogger has been able to do this, but the others haven’t?

I don’t think this is a “HTML issue” at all.  It’s a user interface issue.  The user interface being: you type HTML and words appear on your blog.  Except the user interface allows you to do stupid things, which it shouldn’t.

Michael Jennings is right.  It’s an easy problem to solve.  It can be solved for Wordpress comments with a plugin.

Why isn’t it solved?  In the case of Wordpress, it’s open source which means, in theory, anyone could solve it and send the solution to the maintainers.  If they like it, they will include it in the next release.  So either no-one is bothered enough about this problem to try to fix it, or the maintainers are opposed to the idea in principle.  I suspect the former.

Actually, Brian, it’s my fault. I forgot to close a tag. Big deal.. not. When I travel, less time, more rush, and I still want to blog. So I don’t check… actually, I do but I discovered that Firefox displayed everything correctly, even when the tag was unopened. Go figure. IE not only displayed the error, it also for some reason centers my entire blog! That I blame on the template.

Anyway, it takes two seconds to fix a closed tag. At least you got a post out of it, Brian. :)

Adriana - hope you are well.

Two disagreements, both of emphasis rather than on/off right/wrong type responses.

First, the whole point of my posting, which I now repeat, is that I don’t think it was your “fault”.  Yes, you committed a minor infraction of the blogging rules of the road.  But the result was a major derangement of your blog out of all proportion to the triviality of your original error, and a derangement that, as these comments make clear, need not have happened.

Second, I love blogs as much because of how they look as because of what they say, and dislike chat rooms, email groups, for the same reason.  How they look.  (Maybe that’s one reason why I haven’t taken to rss etc.  I want to go to the original place.  Also I am a lazy technophobe.) So, when a minor posting error seriously changes the look of a blog, which it constantly does - you are, to put it mildly, not the first to have committed such a tiny fluff - that, to my eyes is a big deal, which strikes at the heart of one of the great USPs of blogging.

Your final observation, that “at least I got a post out of it”, suggests to me that you think I am making a mountain out of a molehill.  I think I am observing a quite large hill and describing it accurately.

So there.

This is one good reason for blogging to Samizdata rather than my own blog when I am travelling, I suppose. Samizdata has editors, and if I make such an error someone will fix it. And like Adriana I often blog in a rush and without checking when I am travelling and/or busy. (Sometimes when I am travelling, I am coming in over slow and/or strange connections that makes checking impossible, too).

thanks for this post! i’m not the most technologically adept blogger, and couldn’t figure out for the life of me why my whole blog became italicized after a certain word just now. yay for google and your post!

katie

How very pleasing that what I and my commenters said here helped you.  All my life I’ve been trying to make the world a better place.  Finally, I think I did it.

I think this a great short explanation of regex engine expectations. The only part I might tweak is the part that addresses the mostly greedy nature of the Perl engine.