Re: Question about ambiguous scope

I actually looked in HTML 4 and HTML 5 and the upper left cell is 
ambigous.  Since the next section is irregular tables, a brief 
transition from simple tables to might simply explain the upper left 
corner problem:

Something like:
"You may wonder whether the <th> cell in the upper left corner is 
interpreted as a row header or a column header.  It could be both.  The 
answer is that the situation is ambiguous without using the "scope" 
attribute of the <th> element. The next section on irregular tables will 
cover how we resolve the upper left corner problem and other unusual 
configurations using the attributes of <th> cells.

Wayne
On 5/19/2014 1:48 AM, Bim Egan wrote:
> Hi Wayne,
>
> No, there's no de facto rule to say what direction the header in the top
> left corner covers. It is both directions equally.  To my mind this means
> that most tables should use the scope   attribute to ensure that screen
> readers are given the requisite information.  However in practice this isn't
> going to happen, and while I'm fairly sick of hearing "January December"
> when moving into the last column  of a calendar, in most cases the human
> will either be able to determine or guess why this happens and not believe
> that January is the header for the December cell.  When headers are less
> predictable though, it can be a real issue.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bim
>
>
>
>        -----Original Message-----
>        From: Wayne E Dick [mailto:wayneedick@gmail.com]
>        Sent: 17 May 2014 01:28
>        To: w3c-wai-eo@w3.org
>        Subject: Question about ambiguous scope
>        
>        Is the scope of upper left corner of a table ever
>        unambiguous without a scope attribute? How does a program
>        determine the scope upper left corner in any simple table
>        without a scope attribute?  Are there an HTML semantic
>        rules that says it is column or row header?
>        
>        Wow, I never thought about this until this morning.  What
>        a nifty paradox.
>        
>        
>