using tag first time

Andreas Prilop wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, The Bicycling Guitarist wrote:
>
>> by the Nazi <span lang="de">Luftwaffe</span>
>
> If you markup single words with the lang attribute, shouldn't you
> label "Flak" and "Nazi" also as German?

These words have both been adopted into the English language. "Nazi,"
especially, is more commonly used in English than in German. (Don't you
say "NS"?) "Luftwaffe" and "Flugabwehrkanone" are still German (English
speakers generally don't know these words).

--
John

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:17:57 GMT
John Hosking scribed:

> ...
>and "Flugabwehrkanone" are still German (English
> speakers generally don't know these words).

Gadzundheit

--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Andreas Prilop wrote:

> What's the point of <dfn> here? Without "title", it's pretty useless.
> See http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic.html6
> for some <dfn> examples.

That's interesting. I have tried to find any description of the <dfn> tag
in the W3C documents and ended up with no more than:

DFN:
Indicates that this is the defining instance of the enclosed term.

(from: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1)

It does not say how it is used, let alone that it be used with a title
attribute. The quoted URL uses it for something else, certainly not for a
definition of a term. So, please, share with us in which document you have
found the details you are explaining us.

The idea I had when reading the above statement was the same as the OP's:
that it gives an opportunity to mark up defining instances of terms. There
is a need for such a thing. Until recently, I was not aware that it exists
and am using <span class="def"> for the purpose), and would replace these
by <dfn> if I had a more complete description of what it means and how it
is used.

--
Helmut Richter

The Bicycling Guitarist Chris DeleteThis @TheBicyclingGuitarist.net wrote:
> <p>
> Ernest K. Gann was a pilot himself, and his love of flying shows in
> the
> books he wrote. Some of the author's culture
> is also revealed by his choice of vocabulary. His use of one word in
> particular dates him. Throughout this book, E.
> K. Gann refers to antiaircraft fire as <dfn>Flak</dfn>.
> ‘Flak’ as a term did not come into use until World War
> Two,
> which was E. K. Gann's time. It was the short form of a term
> introduced
> by the Nazi <span lang="de">Luftwaffe</span>
> to designate antiaircraft artillery. This word was coined in 1938
> <cite>(Merriam-Webster)</cite>.
> </p>

Helmut Richter <hhr-m DeleteThis @web.de> wrote:
> DFN:
> Indicates that this is the defining instance of the enclosed term.
>
> It does not say how it is used, let alone that it be used with a title
> attribute. The quoted URL uses it for something else, certainly not
> for a definition of a term. So, please, share with us in which
> document you have found the details you are explaining us.

There is a common printing style which italicizes words when they first
appear and are defined in the text. (Quotation marks are considered
incorrect and should be used only for quotations.) If the text were a
lesson, the defined words would be the vocabulary list. Subsequent uses
of the word are not italicized. I believe this is the function of DFN.

There is another style rule which states that words treated as words in
a sentence (instead of the things they represent) should be italicized
as well. This may be a superset of the previous rule.

The Bicycling Guitarist has used DFN correctly in his example. However,
a more correct version may be:

<p>
Ernest K. Gann was a pilot himself, and his love of flying shows in
the
books he wrote. Some of the author’s culture
is also revealed by his choice of vocabulary. His use of one word in
particular dates him. Throughout this book, E.
K. Gann refers to antiaircraft fire as <dfn>flak</dfn>.
<span class="word">Flak</span> as a term did not come into use until
World War II,
which was E. K. Gann’s time. It was the short form of a term
introduced
by the Nazi <span lang="de">Luftwaffe</span>
to designate antiaircraft artillery. This word was coined in 1938.
<cite>(Merriam-Webster)</cite>.
</p>

David
Stardate 7580.7

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, David Trimboli wrote:

> There is another style rule which states that words treated as words in a
> sentence (instead of the things they represent) should be italicized as well.
> This may be a superset of the previous rule.

That's what I suspected and how I would use it but it is not what Andreas
Prilop wrote, if I understood him correctly. And I still wonder whether
there is any specification by the W3C beyond the one sentence I quoted.

BTW, I find it bad practice to put information in tag attributes if it is
intended for the reader. This holds for abbreviations/acronyms as well.
When the author feels the need to explain what the abbreviation stands
for, he should do it in the text on the page and not in title-attributes
of tags. The text without tags may miss structure (that's what the tags
are for) but it must be complete in information content.

--
Helmut Richter

Helmut Richter <hhr-m DeleteThis @web.de> wrote:
> And I still wonder whether there is any specification by the W3C
> beyond the one sentence I quoted.

I don't believe there is. All of the phrase elements
(http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1) have annoyingly
short, vague, and controversial descriptions.

> BTW, I find it bad practice to put information in tag attributes if it
> is intended for the reader. This holds for abbreviations/acronyms as
> well. When the author feels the need to explain what the abbreviation
> stands for, he should do it in the text on the page and not in
> title-attributes of tags. The text without tags may miss structure
> (that's what the tags are for) but it must be complete in information
> content.

For the most part, I agree. However, there is something to be said for
making use of the user agent's technology. I see nothing wrong with
using new tools that are more effective than traditional methods. Like
hyperlinks, DFN title attributes often provide useful paranthetical
or complex information in an efficient manner.

David
Stardate 7582.9

"The Bicycling Guitarist" <Chris.TakeThisOut@TheBicyclingGuitarist.net> wrote in message
news:i%zri.66$372.11@newsfe12.lga...
> Hi. Oh boy a little-used tag to implement! Did I use it

How about the usage in the following paragraph. This one is tricky because I
want to have the German pronunciation for "Jasta" but the English for the
number of the Jasta.

...is in command of <dfn><span lang="de">Jasta</span> 76</dfn>, a
fighter squadron flying <span lang="de">Albatros</span> D-III aircraft.

This is an essay written in English but with many German and French proper
nouns. Instead of nesting a span tag for the language attribute as shown,
should the lang attribute be part of the dfn tag, and should I include the
number as part of the dfn or put the dfn tags around the word "Jasta"?
Should I use the TITLE attribute <dfn title="German fighter squadron" lang
="de">Jasta</dfn>

In our last episode,
<Pine.LNX.4.63.0707311917320.9823.DeleteThis@lxhri01.lrz.lrz-muenchen.de>, the lovely
and talented Helmut Richter broadcast on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

> On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Andreas Prilop wrote:

>> What's the point of <dfn> here? Without "title", it's pretty useless.
>> See http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic.html6
>> for some <dfn> examples.

> That's interesting. I have tried to find any description of the <dfn> tag
> in the W3C documents and ended up with no more than:

> DFN:
> Indicates that this is the defining instance of the enclosed term.

> (from: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1)

> It does not say how it is used, let alone that it be used with a title
> attribute. The quoted URL uses it for something else, certainly not for a
> definition of a term. So, please, share with us in which document you have
> found the details you are explaining us.

> The idea I had when reading the above statement was the same as the OP's:
> that it gives an opportunity to mark up defining instances of terms. There
> is a need for such a thing. Until recently, I was not aware that it exists
> and am using <span class="def"> for the purpose), and would replace these
> by <dfn> if I had a more complete description of what it means and how it
> is used.

It appears to me this is nothing more than an effort to extend the concept
of logical markup. Various texts represent defining instances in either
boldface or italics, most often boldface. This makes the logical markup kit
almost complete.

CITE : for titles usually represented in print by italics
EM : for italics used for emphasis
STRONG : for general boldface
DFN : for the (usually) first occurrence of a term in running text where the
term is explained or defined (you must have seen this in textbooks)

Missing:

editorial remarks and emendations, usually rendered in print with italics
and common uses of italics in fiction.


Also missing (but from css) is a way to indicated how nested cite, em,
i, and so forth should be handled. Yes can write css so it will reverse
cite in em (i.e. make cite roman in an italic context), but you have to do
this for every combintation that occurs in the document, but there is no way
to write css that will handle arbitrary levels of nesting of arbitrary
combinations. There should be something that means italics in a roman
context and roman in an italics context.

Pity neither HTML or CSS was written by someone with experience with
literate texts.

--
Lars Eighner <http://larseighner.com/> <http://myspace.com/larseighner>
Countdown: 538 days to go.
Owing to massive spam from googlegroups, I do not see most posts from there.

> DFN : for the (usually) first occurrence of a term in running text where the
> term is explained or defined (you must have seen this in textbooks)

Except in textbooks there is usually an accompanying footnote. I much
prefer the use of <DFN TITLE="Explanation">.

I'm driven mad by missing footnotes or definitions. It's almost a shame
that <DFN> produces the same visual clues whether it contains a TITLE or
not.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Steve Swift wrote:

> Except in textbooks there is usually an accompanying footnote. I much prefer
> the use of <DFN TITLE="Explanation">.

Then you should have a stylesheet for printed output which *does* produce
a footnote.

I would prefer a link to a glossary, for two reasons:

- The explanation is only at one point, not at all occurrences (in
hypertext, there is no "first" occurrence).

- The text outside the HTML tags contains all information.

> I'm driven mad by missing footnotes or definitions. It's almost a shame that
> <DFN> produces the same visual clues whether it contains a TITLE or not.

You may change that in your stylesheet.

--
Helmut Richter