[thelist] Bold vs. Strong

DESCHAMPS Stéphane DSI/SICOR stephane.deschamps at francetelecom.com
Wed Aug 20 03:59:18 CDT 2003


rudy,

> i disagree, a bold style does not <i>necessarily</i> mean emphasis,
> although i will concede that it may to many people

Then how could you define it?

> but what about EM?
> 
> why do people looking for alternatives to B go straight to STRONG?
> 
> EM is for emphasis, and STRONG is for, well, even stronger 
> emphasis, at
> least, if you really care about the semantics, which few people do

Gosh you got me on that one, you're absolutely right.

> well, natch, i can hear them saying, EM is the same as italics!!!!!!!!
> 
> italics are totally different from bold, right?

True and true again.

> and where we used to use B, we want emphasis, okay?
> 
> so, um, skip over EM and go straight to STRONG
> 
> leave italics to CITE, okay?

This is pure semantics you're talking here, be careful ;-)

I know there's some irony involved on your part, of course. :-)
But if for italics I'd use CITE because obviously I'd be citing something, what's (again) the use of bold text with no meaning implied to the boldism? How do you define a text that is "going to be bold only visually but not mean that this part of text is meant to effectively be put forward in my discourse"?

> and don't bother us with the difference between EM and STRONG

Hehe. I won't.



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