This is a revision of a suggestion of a post made on the HTML5Doctor site.

The problem being addressed is the mark-up of subtitles and tag-lines, now that the hgroup element has been deemed unsuitable. The use of such patterns is widespread on the web, and there seems to be a demand among web authors for an agreed way to mark up these patterns.

A number of different solutions have been proposed, and this suggestion addresses just one of them, using the small element, inside the heading (h1-6) element, to delimit the content which is the subtitle/tag-line.

This approach has the particular merit of an existing cow path in the popular twitter bootstrap advice. However, it has been opposed on the grounds that it is incompatible with the existing HTML5 semantics for the small element.

I wish to contend that the existing semantics of the small element (which is essentially only for small print/legalese) are unusually and unhelpfully narrow compared with similar elements like the strong or em elements, and so it seems potentially useful  to investigate whether the semantics of the small element can be adjusted in such a way to retain the essence of its existing definition, but allowing it to encompass the use as a tagline, and potentially other similar uses.


The semantic for the small element that I propose is that of "lowered prominence". Specifically, I suggest that the first part of the small element's definition be changed from 

    "The small element represents side comments such as small print."

to say

    "The small element represents lowered prominence, but equal importance, for its contents.

    "It is suitable for content that is side comments such as small print, or for parts of content that may be omitted from a précis of that content, such as in the construction of an outline of a document or section of a document."
    
    
    
“Lowered prominence” is what one would naturally expect of small print, but would also encompass other situations such as tag-lines and subtitles. It’s also natural, I believe, for an author to think of a <small> tag lowering the prominence of its contents.