[thelist] Non-Deprecated HTML Presentational Elements (was, C SS Font Sizes)

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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James

* Deprecating them wouldn't immediately stop all the browsers in the world
  using them, only new browsers (maybe) that are early enough in their devt
  cycle

* For foreign languages, you should use <span lang="fr"> to define structure
   (screen readers should then pronounce the (say) French correctly), and
   add a class for "foreign" if the italicisation really matters

Cheers
Martin





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Subject:  RE: [thelist] Non-Deprecated HTML Presentational Elements (was, C SS
      Font Sizes)




     Further to the question of why the W3C did not deprecate all
presentational elements (or "fontstyle" elements in the DTD, e.g., <b> and
<i>), I did find a thread in the W3C www-html mailing list archives that
addresses this:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1997Dec/0028.html

     Honestly, the logic behind the arguments presented in that post and
some that follow escapes me. The argument, basically, is this:

* These elements are so commonly used that "to get rid of them would be
dangerous".

* They aren't always presentational, but are sometimes structural, such as
when presenting foreign-language terms within English text. (Sounds rather
presentational to me.)




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