- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 01:31:31 +0000 (UTC)
On Thu, 26 Aug 2010, Christoph P?per wrote: > Ian Hickson: > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2010, Thomas Koetter wrote: > >> > >> What strikes me though is that according to the spec "The br element > >> represents a line break". A *line* break is presentational in nature. > >> The break is structural, but restricting it to a certain presentation of > >> that break lacks the desired separation of structure and presentation. > >> > >> Wouldn't it make more sense to consider the br element to be just a > >> minor logical break inside a paragraph? > > > > Calling it a "line break" doesn't say how it is rendered. It's just a > > conceptual description. > > It presupposes the existance of lines, though. Lines are a very visual > concept, although they can be applied to oral language, as in poems and > songs (where ?//? is often an accepted representation for line breaks in > transcripts). An oral line may span several literal lines and vice > versa. Right. This is about "oral" lines (for lack of a better term), not the "literal" lines. > However, I believe the underlying problem is simply that ?line break? is > (too) often used and understood as a synonym for ?new line?, at least by > non-native speakers. Speaking of breaks on line or paragraph level > therefore makes more sense to me. I don't really understand the difference. > > (A "minor logical break inside a paragraph" is not generally > > represented by a line break, at least not in any typographic > > conventions I've seen; usually, in my experience, those are denoted > > either using ellipses, em-dashes, or parentheses.) > > That?s true for real paragraphs, but not for most ?non-paragraphic? > texts, e.g. addresses. The lines in an address are separate "oral lines", not "minor logical breaks inside a pragraph". -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Monday, 6 December 2010 17:31:31 UTC