Brian Heinrich wrote:
> On 22 Jul 2002, it is alleged that Brant Langer Gurganus sauntered in to
> netscape.public.mozilla.documentation and loudly proclaimed:
>
>> Brian Heinrich wrote:
>>
>>> On 20 Jul 2002, it is alleged that fantasai sauntered in to
>>> netscape.public.mozilla.documentation and loudly proclaimed:
>>>
>>>> John Keiser wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> fantasai wrote:
>>>>> > But using <b> to do so will not help anyone without a graphical
>>>>> > browser. At least if you declare your intent--which is to highlight
>>>>> > the information--someone can write the necessary style rules for
>>>>> > devices with other capabilities.
>>>>>
>>>>> But that's the intent with b and i. Highlighting is
>>>>> presentational. The fact that non-graphical browsers highlight
>>>>> things differently
>>>>> just means they have a different presentation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> By highlighting, I meant making text stand out. That's not the intent
>>>> with <b> and <i>. <b> means use bold-face type, <i> means use an italic
>>>> font. It does not mean "make this stand out". In the HTML spec, they
>>>> are explicitly associated with changing font style, *not* for attaching
>>>> semantics. Here's an example:
>>>>
>>>> <h1>The Hobbit</h1> <h1>The Hobbit</h1>
>>>> <b>by J. R. R. Tolkien</b> <strong>by J. R. R.
>>>> Tolkien</strong>
>>>>
>>>> In the first snippet, I have listed the title and the author of a
>>>> document. The author line is bold. In the second, I have also listed
>>>> the title and the author of the document, and in Mozilla, it is also
>>>> bold. But that's just the presentation in Mozilla--in another browser,
>>>> it could be rendered in italics or in a red font, or in a bigger font,
>>>> or any number of other formats that make the text stand out. You see,
>>>> in the second one, the author line is emphasized. If I were to read it
>>>> aloud to you, I would stress the author line. (Perhaps it's quoting the
>>>> title page to point out that the author is Tolkien, not C. S.
>>>> Lewis.) I would not do that with the first snippet because it is not
>>>> meant to
>>>> be emphasized. At least, the author hasn't told me to emphasize
>>>> it--only to make it bold, which as far as I can tell, is just a
>>>> formatting convention to make it look pretty.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Not necessarily. Consider a standard bibliographical entry:
>>>
>>> Tolkein, J. R. R. <i>The Hobbit</i>. Place: Publisher, date.
>>>
>>> In this case, <i> would be correct, whereas <em> would be incorrect,
>>> since book titles (as a few other things) are italicised. It's
>>> purely presentational; no semantic or content-based meaning is implied.
>>
>> I agree here. There are times when presentational markup is
>> necessary. But, also this entire bibliographical entry should be in
>> <cite> tags which is usually rendered in italics anyway.
>
>
> No, it shouldn't. <cite> is completely irrelevent here. I'm not citing
> something; I'm giving a bibliographical entry. <cite> had its own
> problems in this context as well.
>
>> Actually, a markup language or at least the use of <span> should
>> probably be used here since italics are the same as underlining in
>> this case.
>
>
> Um . . . since when? Underlining is a convention for hand-writing and
> typewriters; italics is the print-oriented convention.
Since MLA, it says that they are essentially the same, however italics
is *usually* used in final copies where underlining is used in manuscript.
>
>> Plus, there is rarely a difficult time seeing underlines, but there is
>> difficulty seeing italics.
>
>
> ?! -- I'll agree that italics can at time look like crap on screen
> (depending on font, &c), but I've yet to encounter a case where I've had
> difficulty seeing them. (Let me add that I have an unreasonable
> adversion to the unnecessary use of underlining, which tends to look
> like utter s*** on anything but a typewriter.)
The MLA Handbook made that point, not me.
>
>> Perhaps it should be:
>> <cite>Tolkien, J. R. R. <span class="title">The Hobbit</span>.
>> Place: Publisher, date</cite>
>
>
> Christ, *that* would be a mess.
>
> If I'm quoting something in the body of my text, either as a quotation
> or block-quote, I'm going to give a reference ('citation') in
> parenthetical fomat. (My background's humanities, so I use MLA, but APA
> style isn't dissimilar.) That citation (something like what follows) --
>
> 'Is not the attitude of the heroes of <i>MASH</i>, however, precisely
> that of an active <i>disidentification</i>?' (Žižek,
> <i>Plague</i> 22).
>
> -- refers to a bibliographical entry. (This raises its own set of
> problems, of course, unless I were (as I would) to set |q { font-style:
> normal; }|. There's also the issue of giving a link to the
> bibliographical entry itself, since <q cite="<URL>"> wouldn't be
> entirely /� propos/ here, in as much as it should be the /citation
> itself/ that points to the bibliographical entry, not the entire
> quotation -- but that's easily enough worked around.)
>
> I'm talking about the bibligraphical entry here. So, for instance, it
> should be something like:
>
> <p style="text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 1em;">Žižek, Slavoj.
> <i>The Plague of Fantasies</i>. Wo Es War. Ed. Žižek.
> Verso. London: New Left Books, 1997.</p>
>
>> with a style sheet of:
>> @media "print" {
>> span.title { font-style: italic }
>> }
>>
>> @media "screen" {
>> span.title { text-decoration: underline }
>> }
>
>
> *Urkh!* 'Scuse me whilst I choke on that. . . .
>
> /b.
>
>>> /b.
>>>
>>>>> Non-graphical browsers most likely interpret b the same as strong,
>>>>> and i the same as em.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> They shouldn't. If some do it's only because most authors are negligent
>>>> and mapping <b> to <strong> and <i> to <em> is a good enough guess that
>>>> they find it makes reading pages easier for their clients.
>>>>
>>>>> And b is a helluvalot easier to type than strong. Vilify me if you
>>>>> want for not wanting to type 10 extra characters every time I want to
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> highlight a sentence ...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm not going to vilify you for that. I completely understand that
>>>> typing so many extra characters is a chore--I code by hand too, you
>>>> know. If you're using a text editor with search & replace, though, is
>>>> it too much to ask you to run a replacement on <b> and <i>? As the
>>>> author, you will know when <b> really means <strong> and when it's just
>>>> there for formatting.
>>>>
>>>> ~fantasai
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> __________________________________________________
>>>> Do You Yahoo!?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (No, I don't, actually. . . .)
>>>
>>>> Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
>>>> http://health.yahoo.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
Brant Langer Gurganus
Senior, Perry Meridian High School
Eagle Scout, Boy Scouts of America
Junior Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 545
Utility Clerk, Kroger
Default QA Contact, Mozilla Evangelism
Technician, Protonic.com
Webmaster, troop545.cjb.net
Webmaster, www.firecrafter.org
Webmaster, www.msdpt.k12.in.us/etspages/ph
