Re: Abbreviations and Acronyms: [techs] Latest HTML Techniques Draft

Richard Ishida wrote:
> In my mind, a <term> element is too vague.  For example, I think some
> people will use such an element to isolate technical terms, or perhaps
> new terms in a document. (So that they can style them differently from
> the surrounding text.)  (I can think of other uses too.)

I think we need a common term for the same behavior: a syntethic term, which
can be explained/expansed by a longer expression. The CSS rendering should
be achieved with extra class attributes, if really needed. We don't need a
too rich markup: html is good because it's simple. For expansions or
personalized markup, xml or other sgml languages are ok.


> What we're talking about here is specifically something that has a
> longer form, so that's why I'm happy with an abbr element name (using
> the word 'abbreviation' ((where that last word could be another
> application for a <term> tag)) in its non-technical sense).

Yes, it's true. But abbr or abbreviation could be tricky, because they mean
a not so (not enough) general thing, as I see them. An abbreviation is
always proununced as the full word, the acronym isn't.

There are some linguistic trickery that can not be solved, perhaps, with
abbreviations.

So a more general term should be better. The only reason not to do is
backward compatibility: and then we should use the same abbr we already
have, and without introducing a new 'abbreviation'. In the other case, if we
choose to use a new label, it shoul be more general, more abstract. Perhaps
not 'term', but more abstract and less problematic, from a linguistic point
of view, than abbreviation.

I hope I have explained myself... :)

best,

Maurizio Boscarol
http://www.usabile.it
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Received on Friday, 12 December 2003 09:18:21 UTC