Re: Foreign Words and Phrases

On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Rob wrote:

> On 22 Sep 97, Martin J. Dürst <mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch> wrote:
> > [..]
> > > <EM lang="it">Lega Nord</EM>
> > > 	This is also no good, because it implies an emphasis that I don't
> > > want in the document.  For the same reason, <CITE> and other traditionally
> > > italicized elements are no good.
> >
> > I guess this is what you will have to go with. If you want foreign terms
> > to be something different, which should be visible, then this is a sort
> > of emphasis. You are saying: Hey, here comes something special.
> > [..]
> 
> I disagree completely. The purpose of using italics for 'foreign' words
> or phrases is for visual emphasis to tell the reader something is special
> about that word, though not necessarily logical emphasis. Hence EM is
> inappropriate if there is nothing *important* about the foreign word.

Sorry I have used words such as "semantics" and "logic" in earlier
postings. SGML/HTML are about *structure*. And foreign words definitely
have some *structural* emphasis in the contexts we are discussing.
They are something that somehow breaks the structure of plain text,
important enough to be emphasized.


> Italics provide a visual cue that something is special about the word
> without saying what that special attribute is. (It's assumed the human
> reader will figure out the difference between emphasis, flagging of
> non-standard/special/foreign words, and citations.)
> 
> Using EM is deceptive and will throw off a speech renderer that might
> speak the world with added volume. SPAN is more appropriate.

That wouldn't be a mistake. There has to be some distinction between
the case that a foreign word is used without italics/emphasis and the
case it is emphasized as something special. Both cases exist, and it
would be wrong to not distinguish them aurally.


Regards,	Martin.

Received on Tuesday, 23 September 1997 09:39:04 UTC