Hi Micky,
I agree it's not a perfect fit and I'm cramming in the idea that the concept
(signified) is the 'term' and therefore the <dt>
and that the descriptions/defintions/representations of that concept
(signfiers) are the <dd>s.
I don't think it's too far a strecth and until XHTML come up with a tag like
an intangible concept (eg: <concept />) I think it's a fairly easy
translation from structuralism to semantic xhtml.
True it's not perfect - but i think it's pretty darn close...
I'm not sure I follow your dog = animal & streetthug analogy. This seems
like a perfect use of the DL.
Wouldn't it then go:
<dt>Dog</dt>
<dd>Quadrapedal Mammal</dd>
<dd>Slang: Referring to a person familiarly in the context of a street
gang</dd>
This is similar to Russ's explanation in the "Punt" example here:
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/definition/
R :o)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Micky Mourelo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: [WSG] Definition List for Products/Items with Image
Richard:
Hi Micky,
Not sure I follow..
The <dt> is the signified (the object itself) and the signifiers (<dd>s)
don't so much as 'define' it in the strict sense, but act as a
representation of the concept.
Nope, it is the other way round, the dt is the signifier, the
signified is the dog itself, not even the description, so Chien, Can,
Inu are signifiers, as well as Bitch or Fido. That's one of the
reasons this analogy does not apply too well.
The title of a book would be a signifier of the book itself, you would
then try to describe the book trough a description.
Title-> dt, description->dd, signified->the real book.
<dt>Green</dt>
<dd>Color of the leaves</dd>
<dd>Example: <blockquote cite="http://www.poetry.com/envy.html";>Green is
the
color of my true love's hair</blockquote></dd>
The quote is related to the previous dd, not directly to the dt,
otherwise it would be on the same level as the previous, AND following
dds. And the following ones do not neccessarily have to go along with
the example/quote/image.
Consider the definiton of dog as an animal, or a streetgang person,
putting the images depicting the animal and the gangster at the same
level would be more than confusing, and so not semantic.
The problem is of course more obvious when you have different
definitions for a single term, how dou you relate them? If almost
every single part of the description of a term gets its own dd, how
can we tell apart which items are grouped and belong to one of the
different definitions?
BTW your css solution is great, I came up with the same for a
newspaper some time ago, but it had/has one drawback, I had to ask the
editors to restrict the dt to one line.
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