[whatwg] notation for typographical uncertainty

[ddailey]

Ya'll probably have dealt with this already but here is the usage case

My son and I are are typing my recently deceased Dad's memoirs from the Manhattan project.

I'm saying to son: "if you can't figure out what it says, type the characters you are sure about. Use '?' marks for the letters that you aren't sure about."

 Ultimately this is ASCII with the most minimal of markup.

Question: what markup will be least cumbersome (and hence most recommended) within a plain text document that may ultimately be converted (automagically) to HTML5, assuming, in the meantime, that we may stoop so low as to put it in HTML4. I know folks claim HTML5 will never break the web, but those folks and I have some beer to drink before we see eye to eye on that subject, having seen the web break so many times in the last 1.7 decades since I started playing with HTML at NCSA. Let us say I am a skeptic. 
cheers
David
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