Re: Introduce <term> element

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Doug Jones <doug_b_jones@mac.com>
> Date: 2007 April 09 19:11:09 EDT
> To: Laurens Holst <lholst@students.cs.uu.nl>
> Subject: Re: Introduce <term> element
>
> You might want to look at my HTML WG Glossary e-mail of 04/07/2007  
> EDT. It compares the 'real world' use of bold and italic with the  
> WHAT WG definitions. I really don't see the need for <term>.
>
> I created this glossary before reading the <term> thread.
>
> Doug Jones
> doug_b_jones@mac.com
>
> On 2007 Apr 04, at 03:21, Laurens Holst wrote:
>
>> Looking at HTML5’s definitions of <i> and <b>, and in particular,  
>> the examples, I notice the following:
>>
>>> The examples below show uses of the i  element:
>>>
>>> <p>The <i>felis silvestris catus</i> is cute.</p>
>>> <p>The <i>block-level elements</i> are defined above.</p>
>>> <p>There is a certain <i lang="fr">je ne sais quoi</i> in the  
>>> air.</p>
>>
>> and
>>
>>> The following example shows a use of the b element to highlight  
>>> key words without marking them up as important:
>>>
>>> <p>The <b>frobonitor</b> and <b>barbinator</b> components are  
>>> fried.</p>
>>
>> If you look at these examples, they are really all just foreign or  
>> scientific or other types of terms that are accentuated (using  
>> either bold or italics) as a means to help the user understand that.
>>
>> The second example of the <i> element could be covered by the  
>> <dfn> element. <dfn> means ‘the defining instance of a term’.  
>> However, what all these examples have in common is that basically,  
>> they are all using a term without defining it, or want to  
>> highlight additional instances of the term as well. In other  
>> words, <dfn> is too limited to be applied to all terms, and thus  
>> currently <i> is used instead.
>>
>> So, in order to fill this gap, I suggest a <term> element is  
>> introduced, as an accompaniment for <dfn>. This will cover a lot  
>> of cases where <i> is used and <em> is inappropriate. I think it  
>> is generic enough to deserve its own element, as opposed to making  
>> <i> and <b> catch-all elements and defining several overlapping  
>> meanings for them.
>>
>>
>> ~Grauw
>>
>> -- 
>> Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san nan da!!
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> Laurens Holst, student, university of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
>> Website: www.grauw.nl. Backbase employee; www.backbase.com.
>>
>> <lholst.vcf>
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