[whatwg] [WA1] Literals and Actions, comments on inline markup

Maniac Maniac at SoftwareManiacs.Org
Thu May 12 03:07:43 PDT 2005


fantasai wrote:

> Literals
> --------
>
>   There doesn't seem to be any appropriate markup for literals in HTML.
>
>   For example:
>
>      The words 'elude' and 'allude' are frequently mixed up.
>
>   The formatting for such elements varies freely: I've seen single quotes
>   (which I prefer), double quotes, and italics. It is therefore 
> stylistic,
>   and should be controlled (or controllable) with CSS.

Not so freely in fact. For example in russian typography these things 
should be marked up only with quotes (U+00AB and U+00BB). Simple double 
quotes (") are however more widely used and single quotes (') are also 
used but mainly in tech-savvy environment. But speaking of italics as a 
way of marking up literals - this just won't be understood within 
majority of people. Italics in russian typography is quite rare and may 
be associated perhaps only with emphasis, not literals.

That said I agree that it should be controllable with CSS. But since 
it's not entirely stylistic it shouldn't be controlled only by stylesheet.


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