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

Robin wrote on Thursday, May 15, 2003 at 3:18:08 AM:

> 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.

The idea has merit. There are more styling possibilities than the
current solution and the semantics are more accurate. I worry about
the wisdom of using the em element to deemphasise something, but it
can make sense if you stretch a bit. Deemphasis isn't common, and by
its nature isn't very important (if deemphasis is lost entirely,
usually the meaning stays intact with little or no loss).

-- 
John Lewis

Received on Thursday, 15 May 2003 16:08:05 UTC