Looking for a way to put explanatory stuff inside a quote appropriately

Hello.
Something I think that should be considered for xhtml recommendations
is a way to introduce stuff inside a <blockquote> or <q> tags that
don't count as part of the quote, so that it don't be confused as part
of the quoted text. Like when one have to put explanatory or missing
stuff in a quote, as is generally represented by square brackets ([]):

"I appreciate it [the honor], but I must refuse"
"the future of psionics [See definition] is in doubt"
"I'd like to thank [several unimportant people] and my parentals [sic]
for their love, tolerance [...] and <span style="font-style:
italic">assistance</span> [italics added]"

Or when one want to put a quoted text followed by the cite, to make it
clear the relation between the quote and the cite:

	Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet.
	—Douglas Adams

	All that glisters is not gold.
	—William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II, sc. vii


That can be handled with a <cite> between a <blockquote>, but
sometimes one have to explain stuff that is not technically part of
the citation:

	I hope we shall abolish war and settle all differences at the
conference table... I hope we shall abolish all hydrogen and atom
bombs before they abolish us first.
	—Charles Chaplin, in response to journalist for his views on the
future of mankind at his 70th birthday, 1959-04-16

Also, the current CSS3 proposal add a footnote feature for paged
media. Generally, the footnotes are used for citations so they don't
interrupt the text, and for that the <cite> element will be used. But
another common use is to mention personal explanations about a text
written by someone else, and there's no specific element to determine
that (an <span> tag will be used by default, but I think a semantic
way is need).

—Andrés Sanhueza.

(examples taken from Wikimedia projects)

Received on Monday, 4 June 2007 07:42:38 UTC