13959 2011-08-29 19:10:04 +0000 dfn no longer supports unfamiliar terms that lack contextual definition 2011-08-30 11:34:27 +0000 1 1 1 Unclassified HTML WG HTML5 spec unspecified Other other CLOSED WORKSFORME http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-dfn-element P3 normal --- 1 contributor ian aaron mike public-html-admin public-html-wg-issue-tracking public-html-bugzilla oldest_to_newest 56002 0 contributor 2011-08-29 19:10:04 +0000 Specification: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/text-level-semantics.html Multipage: http://www.whatwg.org/C#the-dfn-element Complete: http://www.whatwg.org/c#the-dfn-element Comment: I think the change to dfn being the defining instance of a term removes one previously solid use case for dfn: defining unfamiliar terms that may make no sense to define in context. For instance, use of "borrowed" terms and phrases from other languages that may be unfamiliar to the reader. In that case, a simple dfn element with lang attribute and title to define the term or phrase seems proper. Without that use available, there becomes a hole in HTML's semantics that was previously plugged and there are no other elements that make sense to replace dfn in that instance. Posted from: 74.221.190.5 User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_8) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/13.0.782.215 Safari/535.1 56003 1 aaron 2011-08-29 19:16:22 +0000 The change to dfn being the defining instance of a term removes one previously solid use case for dfn: defining unfamiliar terms that may make no sense to define in context. For instance, use of "borrowed" terms and phrases from other languages. For example: I like to work with markup languages because they are simple and easy to read. They also have that certain <dfn lang="fr" title="I don’t know what">je ne sais quoi</dfn>. 56025 2 zcorpan 2011-08-30 05:41:34 +0000 (In reply to comment #1) > The change to dfn being the defining instance of a term removes one previously > solid use case for dfn: defining unfamiliar terms that may make no sense to > define in context. For instance, use of "borrowed" terms and phrases from other > languages. For example: > > I like to work with markup languages because they are simple and > easy to read. They also have that certain <dfn lang="fr" title="I > don’t know what">je ne sais quoi</dfn>. The spec has a similar example: There is a certain je ne sais quoi in the air. http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete/text-level-semantics.html#the-i-element Your example says the language of the title is french. Maybe you could mark it up as follows: I like to work with markup languages because they are simple and easy to read. They also have that certain je ne sais quoi. 56026 3 zcorpan 2011-08-30 05:42:57 +0000 EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Accepted Change Description: no spec change Rationale: See comment 2. 56036 4 aaron 2011-08-30 11:34:27 +0000 (In reply to comment #2) > The spec has a similar example: > > There is a certain je ne sais quoi in the air. > http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/complete/text-level-semantics.html#the-i-element Ok, so i has replaced dfn in managing these cases. I guess that makes sense. Thanks!