- From: Smylers <Smylers@stripey.com>
- Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:52:12 +0100
HTML 5 currently defines <em> as being for "stress emphasis of its contents", noting that: The placement of emphasis changes the meaning of the sentence. The element thus forms an integral part of the content. -- http://www.whatwg.org/html5#the-em-element I'm not sure this definition is wide enough to encompass the use that HTML 5 itself puts <em> to, using it for the "This section is non-normative" bits at the start of sections, such as: http://www.whatwg.org/html5#introduction The italics there don't seem to be indicating stress (and the sentence doesn't warrant an exclamation mark at the end), more that it's meta-content -- information about the section. Of current HTML 5 defintions that seems closest to one of the purposes of <i>: "an alternate voice or mood, or otherwise offset from the normal prose": http://www.whatwg.org/html5#the-i-element I suggest that either the definition of <em> is broadened to include this sense, or these normativity designators are instead marked up with something like <i class=normativity> or <i class=other>. This meta-content use seems similar to an article by a guest author being prefaced by an italicized paragraph from a regular author introducing the guest. Or editoral comments inserted into somebody else's work, which are often in square brackets and italics as well as having "- Ed" at the end. Mainly it's just indicating some kind of separation from the main text. (<strong> isn't quite right for these uses either: while the sentence is important, it's hardly the key information in that section. If reading the spec out loud to somebody "This section is non-normative" is the kind of thing I'd say very quickly, as boilerplate to be got out of the way of the interesting content to follow (almost like legalese on radio adverts). That suggests the <small> element, but that isn't quite right either: whether a section is normative is materially relevant to the content, not just a legal technicality.) Smylers
Received on Thursday, 18 June 2009 04:52:12 UTC