Why are <small> and <big> better than <font>?

[Joel Shepherd]

If you think it is just a matter of "printing them in italics",
then it is clearly only a presentational concern, in which case
<span class="ship"> should serve you well.

No, it is not purely presentational. The semantic meaning is "this is
the name of a ship" (why this is necessary is explained elsewhere in
the thread). Italicizing the ship's name is a common presentation, but
some special presentation is generally *not* optional.

<span class="ship">Harry S. Truman</span> is in Bremerton.

.... Is explicitly saying "Harry S. Truman" has no special semantics
attached to it, which is false. The point of writing:

<i class="ship">Harry S. Truman</i> is in Bremerton.

.... Is to explicitly say "Harry S. Truman" has some special meaning,
so special that we are strongly suggesting special presentation,
albeit a hacky one forced on us by the lack of an appropriate <name>
element.

 

[Ben]

Nick Theodorakis wrote:
[...]

I put it to you that italicising is merely a method of emphasis. Mr
Webster seems to agree with me:
[...]
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

Italic \I*tal"ic\, n.; pl. {Italics}. (Print.)
An Italic letter, character, or type (see {Italic}, a., 2.);
-- often in the plural; as, the Italics are the author's.
Italic letters are used to distinguish words for emphasis,
importance, antithesis, etc. Also, collectively, Italic
letters.

I don't know about ship names, but for genus/species names, there is
no emphasis implied by italicizing. I guess that would go under "etc."

The dictionary is saying that italics are used to distiguish something
and then lists for what - for emphasis *or* for importance *or* for
whatever reason (etc.) meaning that italics are not necessarily used for
emphasis except where something needs to be distinguished that way.

So italics from the above definition does not necessarily mean emphasis.

regards,
Ben

 

[Lauri Raittila]

Sure, but could you not achieve the same by simply not specifying
font-weight (or -color) at all?

No. I have
em {font-style:normal;font-weight:bold}
in my user stylesheet.

If I omit font-weight from author stylesheet, the bold will be always
used, making all ship names bolditalics. If I use font-weight:inherit the
weight is inherited from the containing element. Why I prefer 'inherit'
to 'normal', is that there might be emphasis on that ship name

<strong><em class="ship">Krinuola</em> on uponnut</strong> pari kertaa.

If I just used font-weight:normal, the ship name would not be bolded
(supposing strong does bolding), and that would make emphasis to wrong
place. (if users strong would instead make it red on white, color would
not be problem)

Also works if user has
strong em {font-weight:900;}
as em.ship is more spesific.

The number one reason why you don't use em but i for ship names or other
such things is that em is not always italics. But it's practical reason,
not theoretical, and we weren't talking about practice.

I don't understand the difference
between omitting font-weight entirely, and using
"font-weight:inherit;": I was hoping you would clarify that.

Inheriting happens from element that contains the element that inherits.
Not from elements default value, even if some people implementing some
unnamed browser thought so.

 

[Joel Shepherd]

Inheriting happens from element that contains the element that
inherits. Not from elements default value, even if some people
implementing some unnamed browser thought so.

Hmm. Methinks something is missing in my understanding of how
inheritance works. Thanks for the info: I'll go do some studying and
try to get my head clear on it.

 

[Rob McAninch]

I know that. My question is why <small> and <big> are any
better than <font>.

They are better than font because they're relative to the user's
preference and most likely don't change the actual font. Using
font is akin to specifying a pixel size for a font in your CSS.

Of course they're still presentational but should have an effect
in browsers lacking CSS. (Haven't researched it.) Which tends to
make people happier overall.

 

[Rob McAninch]

Bold and italic are typographical conventions. Mostly often em or
strong is a better tag.

In some fields it's common to use italics or other
presentational devices to denote proper names.

cite is an option for some of these times. But it doesn't fit for
all of them. So I agree that:

There's no <ship> or <genus> tag in HTML, so <i> suffices. Use
of <i> for this purpose is more appropriate than <span>, as
the author is not *suggesting* the name be italicized for sake
of appearance; but rather it is imperative the name be
italicized (or highlighted in some other way) to denote its
semantic significance.

Some of this is rather specialized meaning though, so hopefully
the source is kept in XML or the like where the real structural
meaning can be attached.