RE: Speak-Punctuation

The main problem seems to me to be that the nuances of written English
punctuation (and punctuation of other human languages) are too complex to
be handled by a predefined set of CSS properties. It would be better to
let page authors tell speech-based browsers exactly how to render complex
text. This might be accomplished either by an HTML element similar to
the proposed <RUBY> or by an HTML attribute similar to the "title"
attribute of the <ABBR> and <ACRONYM> elements. Or maybe some sort of
"alt"-like attribute for any inline text element. For example, an author
could write:
<p>But Lord Vader, it will cost us <span spoken="18 billion dollars">$18
billion</span> to build another Death Star, and you <em>know</em> how the 
Senate wants to cut defense spending.</p>
A speech browser would then say "18 billion dollars," rather than
"dollar-sign eighteen billion" or "eighteen dollars billion."

This line of thinking might properly belong in www-html@w3.org.

Benjamin Schak
benjamin@schak.com
http://www.schak.com/

Received on Thursday, 12 August 1999 16:21:46 UTC