HTML 4.01 specification error?

I found the following inconsistency in the Tables section of the
latest HTML 4.01 Specification (W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999,
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/").

According to Subsection 11.3.2 (Inheritance of alignment specifications,
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.3.2.1"):

" The order of precedence (from highest to lowest) for
  the attribute valign (as well as the other inherited attributes lang,
  dir, and style) is the following:
         ...
  >>>>>  5. An attribute set on the table (TABLE). <<<<< "

On the other hand the valign attribute is not defined for the
table element neither in Subsection 11.2.1. (The TABLE element,
href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.1")
nor in the DTD.

I guess that the incriminated sentence has been inadvertedly carried over
from the pre-HTML-4.xx times when the valign used to be a legal
attribute of the table element.

If I were wrong, then the above sentence in the specification
needs further clarification, anyway.



PS. I would like to express my satisfaction on the fact that the W3C
decided to implement the ISO 8601 date and time representation.
I hope this move will help to guide the progarmming community towards
the general acceptance and use of this format in computer applications.


****************************************************************************
*			  Gabor Szabo					   *
* Department of Mathematics	Phone:	(785)864-4055			   *
* University of Kansas		Fax:	(785)864-5255			   *
* 405 Snow Hall			E-mail:	szabog@math.ukans.edu		   *
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Received on Wednesday, 2 February 2000 02:05:52 UTC