Should this word be in quotes or in italic? [duplicate]

Let's suppose there exists a standard that documents fruits. This standard has already accepted apple and peach. Banana has just been accepted as a standard. When I say:

The proposal of banana has just been accepted as a standard.

How should banana be written? In quotes ("banana") or in italic (banana)? Because it is not the fruit banana that entered the standard, but the word.

Both quotation marks and italics are used to make a use–mention distinction; italics are probably more used in specific contexts, for example when introducing or defining terms, especially technical terms or those used in an unusual or different way.

Regarding style, there are those who prefer to use quotation marks with multi-word phrases, and italics with single words.

_{[Reference: Wikipedia.]}

If the standard is "A list of all words that refer to fruits" and you have just accepted the word "banana" into the standard, I would say that the word should be in quotes; because, as you say, we are accepting the word itself, not the object that it represents, and enclosing a word in quotes is the accepted method of making the "use/mention" distinction.

On the other hand, if the standard is "a list of all fruits" and you have just accepted that a banana is indeed a fruit, then italicizing the word banana would be preferable.