Email/News markup

[Dan Espen]

Every once in a while, I like to
_underline_ parts of an email or post.

(If you don't see the word "underline" underlined,
the rest of this won't make sense.)

For me, when I put a single underscore before and after a word,
that word displays as underlined when I view the sent email or post.

What I don't understand is that *bold* is supposed to be achieved by
using asterisks instead of underlines.  When I use asterisks that
way, sure enough, the word in question is displayed as bold.  But I
see the asterisks too.

When I do the same with underlines, I don't see extra underlines before
and after the word.

Is the problem on my end or is this inconsistency done on purpose?

Once more:

_underlined_ - okay
_bold_       - extra asterisks
/italic/     - done with slashes (doesn't work)

-- 
Dan Espen