On 31/03/2004 14:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:>> one might specify <tt> </tt> to generate a fixed-width space.
Peter Kirk scripsit:
But, as Ken has just clarified, with NBSP Louis' neck may be stretched rather uncomfortably, if not cut completely. Here is what I don't want to see (fixed width font required):
Louis XVI was guillotined in 1793.
This, however, is a matter of presentation rather than semantics, and as such fitly belongs in the realm of presentational markup. In HTML,
I disagree. Surely there is something SEMANTICALLY different about the space in "Louis XVI". One semantic difference is that it is non-breaking. But another one is that these words should not be split apart. An additional semantic distinction might be that they should be treated as one word for the purposes of word breaking algorithms.
non-breaking and non-stretching are presentational properties, not semantic ones. They don't change the meaning of the space: it's still just a space, not a hyphen or the letter "g". They don't affect non-visual media; we don't break lines in spoken speech. "Louis XVI" is semantically different from "Louis' head" because the former is a bare noun whereas the latter is a noun phrase, but as far as the reader is concerned, they're both separated with "a space". Whether the space breaks or not or stretches or not has no effect on either the meaning or correctness of the text. It only affects its (visual) aesthetic quality.
~fantasai
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