<em><em><em>, degree of emphasis attribute?

John Lewis wrote:
> If you want the equivalent of strong emphasis to be a third level of
> emphasis, which may be closer to strong's original meaning
> (considering most people see "strong" and think "bold"), the
> equivalent is still accomplished through a style sheet:
>
>     em{font-style:italic}
>     em em{font-style:normal}
>     em em em{font-weight:bold}

So in a document using these three levels of emphasis, one might write:

    The B element is <em>deprecated</em> so you
<em><em><em>must</em></em></em> replace it with multiple EMs.

Isn't there some way to use level 1 and level 3 emphasis in concert without
a tag explosion?

If the degree of emphasis is not purely presentational, perhaps this should
be an attribute of the <em> tag. In other words, perhaps what <strong> means
is <em degree="strong">.

If a negative degree were provided (<em degree="light">?), then XHTML could
gain the capacity to de-emphasize text. Possible presentations of
deemphasized text might be thinner fonts, lighter colored text, smaller
point sizes (replacing some uses of the deprecated <small>), or in audio
media, reduced volume.

Received on Thursday, 15 May 2003 04:17:40 UTC