Playing down the text in org-mode

[fatiparty--- via "General discussions about Org-mode." <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>]

Jan 14, 2022, 09:27 by theophilusx@gmail.com:

>
> fatiparty--- via "General discussions about Org-mode." <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> In org-mode one can use the emphasizing tags 
>>
>> *word*   /word/   _word_
>>
>> Is there anything to perform the opposite, playing down the text?
>>
>
>
> No, there are no syntax elements in org mode to do this.
>
> Part of the challenge here is that de-emphasis or 'play down' is not well
> defined. Traditionally, I think the way you handled adding text which
> was considered important enough to include, but perhaps tangential or
> less important was to use a footnote or margin note. The point of
> emphasis in text is to draw the readers eye (and attention) to
> something. It is difficult to do the opposite. Furthermore, most
> techniques used to try and do this really just amount to making the text
> harder to read, which doesn't seem very beneficial for those readers who
> want that additional information. 
>

My intention is rather to makes tho text look different from any highlighting
on normal text rather than making it harder to read.  Customarily, I use bold
for all text, making highlighting not standing out much.

I would need the "play down" thing for documentary scripts, so they can
be distinguished from the "line's actor field".  So playing down is not the right
word for this.

I am playing with foreground colours and height, see what happens.
Something similar to footnote perhaps something similar to 

[mg: marginal text here]

With some elisp code to define a face for such occurrence.


> Personally, I prefer footnotes, asides, margin notes over including less
> important text within the important text because even if the text is
> somehow marked visually to indicate it is less important, I still have
> to scan it when reading. A footnote on the other hand tells me there is
> additional information available if I want to read it and all I had to
> scan was a letter. This is also why I prefer Oxford over Harvard
> referencing styles.
>