- From: Matt May <mcmay@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 09:27:20 -0800
- To: gdeering@acslink.net.au
- Cc: WAI-GL GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
On Dec 24, 2003, at 10:01 AM, Geoff Deering wrote: <abbr title="By the way">BTW</abbr>, I wonder how the linguists feel >> about making acronym and abbreviation synonymous? > > I'm left scratching my head at times wondering what is going on with > decisions such as these. I don't understand the logic behind this at > all. For an organisation that wants to support a semantically rich > web I can't see it as a step forward, and for all those who put a lot > of time into marking up their documents in a meaningful way, what does > it say to them? So far, I have yet to hear a good argument for the status quo. As it is, acronyms and abbreviations are a distinction without much difference, and even the difference is unclear and/or actively debated by its implementers. If it's not reliably implementable or understandable in the first place, it's a poor division to make, semantically speaking. So I'm for a single element in XHTML 2, in the interest of good semantics. XHTML 2 can say that abbr represents acronyms, abbreviations, initialisms, symbols, legends, whatever. I don't know why it needs to be more precise than that. The goal is to allow for expansion of shorthand expressions. What's the value in splitting hairs here? - m
Received on Monday, 29 December 2003 12:27:24 UTC