- From: dolphinling <dolphinling@myrealbox.com>
- Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 18:33:43 -0500
Matthew Raymond wrote: > Matthew Thomas wrote: > >> Except that "sub" is merely (an abbreviation of) a description of the >> typographical presentation! You might just as well say that H<font >> color="green">2</font>O is semantic because it could be pronounced as >> "H green-two O". > > The difference is that "green" is meaningless, where as <sub> is > vital to properly communicate vital information, such as in the case of > chemical formulas. For instance, an aural browser could intelligently > recognize mathematical and chemical formulas and say them in a way that > better communicates their meaning. In this situation "H two O" could > potentially be pronounced "dihydrogen monoxide" or "water". Something > like "green" has no such use, and <b> and <i> can at best be said to > change the tone of pronunciation rather than what is actually said by > the aural browser. "green" is just as meaningful as "subscript"--they're both purely presentational, and we as people have attached meanings to certain presentations. The semantics of "subscript" are completely different from the semantics of "there are two of the (chemical) element that immediately preceded this", but we have attached one to the other. -- dolphinling <http://livejournal.com/users/dolphinling> <http://dolphinling.net> coming soon?
Received on Friday, 7 January 2005 15:33:43 UTC