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

[Aylard JA (James)]

Calum,

	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.)

	I don't know whether these arguments reflect the thinking of W3C's
HTML working group, or just that of outside observers, but it's not very
convincing IMO.

James Aylard