Typographical conventions
The book tries to keep a consistent style in its use of special or
technical terms. Words with a special meaning to C, such as
reserved words or the names of library functions, are
printed in a different typeface. Examples are int
and
printf
. Terms used by the book that have a meaning not to C
but in the Standard or the text of the book, are bold if they
have not been introduced recently. They are not bold everywhere,
because that rapidly annoys the reader. As you have noticed, italics are
also used for emphasis from time to time, and to introduce loosely defined
terms. Whether or not the name of a function, keyword or so on starts with
a capital letter, it is nonetheless capitalized when it appears at the
start of a sentence; this is one problem where either solution (capitalize
or not) is unsatisfactory. Occasionally quote marks are used around
‘special terms’ if there is a danger of them being understood in
their normal English meaning because of surrounding context. Anything else
is at the whim of the authors, or simply by accident.