[whatwg] Change description of em element

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 27 Jun 2012, Joseph Mansfield wrote:
>
> The current semantic meaning of the em element may be confused with that 
> of the strong element. The specification states that the em element 
> increases the level of emphasis. There are, however, two definitions of 
> the word "emphasis":
> 
> 1. Importance, value, or prominence given to something.
> 2. Stress laid on a word or words to indicate special meaning or
>    particular importance.
> 
> While the specification does specify that the em element represents 
> "stress emphasis" - the form of emphasis that changes the meaning of a 
> sentence - the frequent use of the word "emphasis" alone may imply 
> importance. However, the strong element is responsible for importance. 
> Take the given example:
> 
>     <p><em>Cats</em> are cute animals.</p>
> 
> The cats are not important - they are stressed. Stress changes the 
> meaning of the sentence, while importance does not.
> 
> To make this clearer, I suggest two options for changing section 4.6.2:
> 
> 1. Keep the "stress emphasis" from the first sentence and replace all
>    other occurences of "emphasis" with "stress emphasis".
> 2. Replace occurences of "stress emphasis" and "emphasis" with simply
>    "stress". This, however, loses the attachment to the element name.

I've tried to make this clearer in the spec. Let me know if there's any 
cases that are still confusing in this manner.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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