- From: Murray Maloney <murray@muzmo.com>
- Date: Sun, 06 May 2007 11:27:51 -0400
- To: Philip & Le Khanh <Philip-and-LeKhanh@Royal-Tunbridge-Wells.Org>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org,www-html@w3.org
At 04:15 PM 5/6/2007 +0100, Philip & Le Khanh wrote:
> >
> > [[
> > EM Emphasis, typically italic.
> > STRONG Stronger emphasis, typically bold.
> > B Boldface, where available, otherwise
> > alternative mapping allowed.
> > I Italic font (or slanted if italic unavailable).
>
>If I may be so bold, may I remind you of "[your] position" ?
>You asserted :
>
> > Dear Tina (and everyone else who doesn't quite get this...),
> > The semantics* of <i> is emphasise with italic typeface.
> > The semantics* of <em> is emphasise, probably with italics
>
>and I can see /no/ evidence in the fragment above to support
>your assertion that "[t]he semantics* of {<i>|<em>} is emphasise ...",
>since the word "emphasis[e]" occurs nowhere in the definitions
>of "B" and "I", appearing only in the definitions of "EM"
>and "STRONG" (as Tina, and I, and many others, have been arguing
>all along).
The fact that all the specs failed to use those words doesn't dissuade me
from my opinion. For most intents and purposes, the element <b> is a
synonym for <strong>, and <i> is a synonym for <em>.
This reminds of 1999 when so many pedants knew that the change of century
would not come until Dec 31, 2000. It's not that they were wrong, it's just
that the big party happened on Dec 31, 1999.
So, you can quote specs all you want, the bottom line is that <i> and <em> are
interchangeable. They have been since the early days of markup. I was using
<em> and <i> long before HTML was even conceived by Sir Tim.
So, na na na na na to you too.
Murray
Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 15:50:35 UTC