Re: Underline element.

Charles Hinshaw wrote:
> 
> The arguments that I have 
> seen still mistake the the visual display of an element with the meaning 
> of that element - confusing underlinedness (which has no meaning) with 
> meaningful elements that whose meanings are conveyed visually through 
> underlines.

Indeed. I also don't think examples from print style guides (or print 
style guides that have simply been ported one to one to the web) are 
helpful as use cases. In print, the visual presentation is the only way 
to mark up meaning. Through habit/tradition, readers have learned to 
infer semantics from particular visual presentations and, most of all, 
context. This doesn't have to be the case for HTML, where meaning can 
potentially be marked up far more unequivocally (even if, in the end, 
the visual presentation via css then reduces it to the familiar 
bold/italic/underline distinctions).

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke
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Received on Friday, 28 December 2007 21:10:46 UTC