Re: Physical markup concept snag

On Thu, 20 Jan 2000 13:56:21 -0500 (EST), "Russell Steven Shawn
O'Connor" <roconnor@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, Nir Dagan wrote:
>> I think that <b> and <strong> are exactly identical in every practical 
>> and theoretical respect (up to the wording of some specs.), 
>> so it is a matter of taste.

>I think the main differnce is illustrated as follow.  Here I'm comparing
><i> elments to <em> elements.
>
><i> this is <i>nested italics</i></i>.
><em> this is <em>nested emphisis</em></em>.
>
>In the first case, clearly everything should be in italics.

If you are referring to a visual presentation of 'italic' within
'italic' your statement is not correct according to what I have learned
from traditional typesetting practices.

'italic' (or cursive really) within 'italic' reverts to the normal font
presentation as per recommendations from the "old timers lead poisoned
brain" :)

CSS connection;

  I   { font-style: italic; }
  I I { font-style: normal; }

Now that may look "ugly" of course, so other solutions may be used,
still as I read your input it does not sound right in my ears.

>In the second case, using <em>, the nested <em> data should be rendered in
>some other way, commonly a monospaced different font.

Maybe, maybe not.
But a double <EM> sounds very close to <STRONG> to me.

Please consider the text from RFC1866...

  5.7.1.3. Emphasis: EM
      The <EM> element indicates an emphasized phrase,
      typically rendered as italics.

  5.7.1.6. Strong Emphasis: STRONG
      The <STRONG> element indicates strong emphasis,
      typically rendered in bold.

...please note that both headlines up there addresses the same thing,
just at two different levels of strength.

Possible CSS connection;

  EM     { font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; }
  EM EM  { font-style: normal; font-weight: bolder; }
  STRONG { font-style: normal; font-weight: bolder; }

RFC1866 is the closest we have to a real "standard" for HTML, as opposed
to W3C "recommendations", might be worth to remember.

>So <em> is different from <i>.

I can agree on that, but from a different angle.

-- 
Jan Roland Eriksson <jrexon@newsguy.com>
<URL:http://member.newsguy.com/%7Ejrexon/>

Received on Thursday, 20 January 2000 14:41:14 UTC