In case you were wondering, I’ve got two more posts after this one and then I’m moving onto CSS and JavaScript. I’ve got a post on forms (which I’ve been avoiding because forms feel like work) and then a post on the new HTML5 elements and then that’s it.
Writing about CSS and JavaScript will be fun. I’m excited. More excited than I am to write about forms at least. Which isn’t to say I won’t kick ass when writing about forms. It’ll be great.
Ignore me.
On with the show:
B, Strong, Em, I
From the just in case you were wondering what’s up with strong and em and why people use them over b and i department:
The b (bold) and i (italic) tags have been in HTML forever. I haven’t figured out when they first appeared, but they were promised as part of the documentation to the fist web site in August 1991 and later codified as part of the unofficial HTML1 spec in 1993, so 1992 is as good a bet as any.
Later on the concept of “phrase elements” was introduced. They were meant to add “structural information to text fragments” Two of those, strong and em are basically new versions of good old b and i minus the typographic baggage.
Fast forward to 2000. The W3C publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In the section on emphasis they state:
Checkpoints in this section:
* 3.3 Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. [Priority 2]
The proper HTML elements should be used to mark up emphasis: EM and STRONG. The B and I elements should not be used; they are used to create a visual presentation effect. The EM and STRONG elements were designed to indicate structural emphasis that may be rendered in a variety of ways (font style changes, speech inflection changes, etc.)
This recommendation stuck. A lot of code has been written with strong andem and all good IDEs use them when you press the b and i buttons on the toolbar. They’re pretty standard now.
And that’s how we got to strong and em.
And now you know.
Interestingly, b and i are making a comeback in HTML5, having been given a new semantic lease on life. More on that in a couple of weeks.
Continue reading “How To Make a Web Site the Modern Way. Part 9: Tag (and Attribute) Soup”