[whatwg] [br] element should not be a line break

[Christoph Päper]

Ian Hickson (2010-12-07):
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2010, Christoph Päper wrote:

Sorry for replying late.

>> However, I believe the underlying problem is simply that “line break” is 
>> (too) often used and understood as a synonym for “new line”, at least by 
>> non-native speakers. Speaking of breaks on line or paragraph level 
>> therefore makes more sense to me.
> 
> I don't really understand the difference.

Here comes a *line break*
that always means a visual *new line*
like here, whereas a *break on line level* // may look differently
– and may actually be rendered with orthographic possibilities (dashes, parentheses etc.) instead of markup, when they’re textual content, not structure.

>>> (A "minor logical break inside a paragraph" is not generally 
>>> represented by a line break, at least not in any typographic 
>>> conventions I've seen; usually, in my experience, those are denoted 
>>> either using ellipses, em-dashes, or parentheses.)
>> 
>> That’s true for real paragraphs, but not for most “non-paragraphic” 
>> texts, e.g. addresses.
> 
> The lines in an address are separate "oral lines", not "minor logical breaks inside a pragraph".

Addresses (with multpile lines) are a concept native to written, not to spoken language.