Override Markdown Listing 📝

Markdown parsers have a neat feature: a list of any numbers tends to be turned into an ordered lists.

I write:

99. First thing (?)
1. Second thing (??)
50. Third thing (??)
1. Fourth thing (????)

And TIL's markdown parser (Earmark) produces this as HTML:

1. First thing (?)
2. Second thing (??)
3. Third thing (??)
4. Fourth thing (????)

Pretty cool! Sometimes I want to do my own thing, though. This Stack Overflow question elicits a bunch of techniques; the kind I learned today and used with success is:

99\. First thing (?)
1\. Second thing (??)
50\. Third thing (??)
1\. Fourth thing (????)

Escape the pattern; break the system! This perserved my unordered numbering. Now, I may have other problems, like losing automatic ol and li tags, but the hack works.