XHTML Basic and XHTML modularization: ACRONYM and BDO

This has little to do with XHTML as such, but I've always wondered why the
ACRONYM and BDO elements were included in the HTML4.0 standard. While
informing that something is an ACRONYM or ABBReviation is useful, isn't the
first a subclass of the latter? Shouldn't it rather be <ABBR atts> and
<ABBR ACRONYM="acronym" atts>?

And as for BDO, what is the point with the BDO element, given that every
applicable element, in particular SPAN, has a DIR attribute? What
advantages has 

<p><bdo dir="rtl">right to left text direction here.</bdo></p> to 
<p dir="rtl">right to left text direction here.</p>? 

(substitute any other element for P as needed)

Received on Tuesday, 22 February 2000 08:00:03 UTC