Can someone elaborate for me the rule on using the back tick for emphasis? [duplicate]

Question

Is there a rule against which markdown codes are allowed in formatting text for easy reading? It's my impressing that a lot of text that is displayed that isn't code is displayed using code tags to control the way it's output.

Is it alright for me to say, I have these four items, apples, oranges, peaches, and pears to choose from. When it's a list of items that I hope to stand out rather than code that someone will execute?

I have studied a lot of details of markdown and am still studying how to make my messages easy to read. I'm learning new things every day. I even go back and edit many of my previous messages as I learn.

But looking at a recent edit and not on the edit purpose, it appears to be suggesting that I can't use the backtick for formatting when it's not code.

Losing this as an option, will make my messages even harder for me to review when checking for adequacy.

I'm asking question for input because of a recent edit of one of this answer:
http://meta.askubuntu.com/revisions/16120/4

Which says: Please don't use code formatting for emphasis

First I really appreciate people taking the time to help make my answers (as well as all all the other answers on SE) easy to read. But some of the changes as in the case of revision #4 of that particular message, makes my reading it substantially more time consuming and requiring more effort.

I can tell that many of our users go far in trying to make their messages easy to read. They add pictures, when sometimes I think the text would be easier.

I often try to put lots of white spaces in my messages, when some people try not to use white spaces and put what I consider too much into one paragraph.

Thanks in advance for comments from others on permission for using the code formatting markdown feature for readability.

Update with examples:

My original question was concerning the rules on emphasis. I appreciate the response to perspective of my question. However, most of the focus was "understandably" about emphasis. I used the word emphasis because of the note that was attached to the answer I linked in my question.

However, I was not using the backticks as for emphasis. I was using it the way the examples in the photos below.

To me there is a difference, and I agree with the consensus about the emphasis. To me (and concerning my writing and speaking style), emphasizing something is to stress it. Defining and separating something as in, keywords, is different. I understand that my keyword specification may not have been clear to the some. But that was the reason for the way I used the formatting, to specify my intentions with the words. It wasn't my intentions for the words to stand out and be spoken louder. It was my intention for the keywords to be read as in a special definitive manner.

My intentions with the formating was to format the way you see the formating in the images below. The red arrows are pointing to targets items that are specified in the manner of my intentions. They are not specified to be emphasized or yelled out.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Example 4:

Example 5:

Answer 1

No, backticks should not be used for emphasis. There are various reasons for this:

1. Consider blind users using screen reading software. Such context tags (<code>) help them know what they're reading and, if I'm not mistaken, their software will spell anything marked as code letter by letter. So foo would become "eff, ow, ow" (f,o,o).

2. Many of us find that such formatting makes posts harder to read. If you want to emphasize, you can use bold or italics, but code really breaks the flow of your text.

3. That's the site-wide consensus:

   • Inline Code Spans should not be used for emphasis, right?
   • Is highlighting your answer a bad practice?
   • How to prevent users from emphasizing text in comments as "code" instead of "emphasis"?
   • Why do some editors think using unnecessary code formatting "enhances readability?"
   • Abuse of code formatting to add unnecessary emphasis
   • Is using `code` styling for non-code samples okay?

4. It breaks the conceptual model. Um. What I mean is that you are marking things that are not code as code even though they aren't actually code. I'm sure that causes a kitten to cry. Somewhere.

In short, code should only be used for things that a computer would read. So a command, a file name, actual code etc. Please don't use it for emphasis.

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_{PS. I had written up almost all of this answer before noticing that the edit you were referring to was actually mine. I guess you might argue that that means I'm not impartial, but I hope the argument I have given will convince you.}