In <nH****************@reader1.news.jippii.neton Thu, 3 Aug 2006
00:21:38 +0300, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
>Dick Gaughan <dg@dickgaughan.co.ukscripsit:
>In <aW************@reader1.news.jippii.neton Tue, 1 Aug 2006
09:56:12 +0300, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jk******@cs.tut.fiwrote:
>>A better approach is to use
<div class="stanza">
<div>first line</div>
<div>second line</div>
I'm not a poet but I am a pro songwriter and many of the same
principles apply. This construction wouldn't really accurately
reflect the semantics of verse (ob.disclaimer : *as I actually
write*);
Why do you say so?
Because it's what I meant. What I say is usually what I mean.
(Allowing for chronologically induced entropy in the brain.)
>A poem logically consists of components, and since we
have no specific markup for them, we have to work with the markup we can
use. What I suggest seems to be as the best approximation. It's trivial, but
at least it has _some_ structure at least syntactically, as opposite to
scattering command-like <brtags around.
Talk of "scattering tags around" doesn't really advance the
discussion much, particularly when we're comparing
first line<br>
next line
with
<div>first line</div>
<div>next line</div>
I know which of those two I regard as the clearer approximation of
the intent.
Perhaps the waters are muddied by the habitual but in fact
completely inaccurate classification of the segments of a verse as
"lines" which does carry the implication that they may be regarded
as individual entities. That does not in any way reflect the way
songwriters and poets perceive or conceive them, or the way they
are sung, read or spoken.
If I perceived the "lines" of a verse as being separate individual
entities, as in the prose sense of "lines", then I would certainly
regard the use of line breaks as semantically incorrect. But I
don't.
>If you use <br>, you are only saying "line break".
Yes, that's precisely what I'm saying. It's precisely what I
intend. That's why I use the tag the sole purpose of which is to
say "line break". I'm not seeing any error in the logic of that.
>It is meaningful in
visual rendering only.
To suggest that the breaks which reflect the fundamental structure
of verse exist only in visual presentation is to completely
dismiss the essentials of metre and rhythm which are the defining
features of verse. The whole point of breaking the line is that
the pre-existing structure demands it. The breaks are not there to
confer structure, they are there to reflect the structure that
metre and rhythm have already created.
So the primary requirement in the visual presentation of verse is
not to create a structure, it is to accurately deliver the
structure that already exists. Horse, cart, correct order. Without
that pre-existing structure it is not verse, it's prose, and this
discussion is redundant
>By HTML specifications, "line" means just a printed
line, not any logical unit - like a "verse line" really is. Poetry is much
older than any written language, and poetry makes perfect sense as
unwritten, too -
In the case I was discussing, song, the major intent is that it be
sung. The reasons for presenting the lyric on a web page are,
first, to make them easily available to those who wish to sing
them, and second, to provide them for those few people who might
wish to study them either together with or independently from
performance. The fundamental aim in both these scenarios is to
present the meaning and structure of the text as faithfully as
possible to the writer's intent.
>and then it carries a structure that I've expressed with
<divmarkup, but no line breaks, really.
The fact that marking individual lines as <divdelivers a
structure is self-evidently true - but it does not follow that
that structure is an accurate representation of the structure that
already exists in the actual content.
>i.e., this markup would imply a structure which would
differ from the meaning and intent of what I've written.
The markup really implies just a formal structure where a stanza consists of
block elements. What's wrong with that?
Well, if we accept that they can be regarded as block elements
(which I don't, for the reasons I gave above) I wouldn't describe
the markup as being "wrong". So I wouldn't say to you that you
shouldn't do it that way, I'm saying only that marking up the
segments ("lines") of a verse as blocks is not something I would
do as I would regard it as imposing a structure which would
frequently be at odds with my perception of the actual meaning and
intent of the content. As your perception of that intent seems to
be different from mine then naturally your approach to marking it
up will be different. Your markup is completely consistent with
your interpretation of the intent, so there's nothing that could
be called "wrong" with it. My disagreement would be with your
analysis of the structure.
>The method which best conveys my intent as writer is to treat each
verse as being a self-contained block and each line as an inline
element contained within that block.
An inline element that always needs to have a line break before and after it
in visual rendering sounds suspiciously like a block element, doesn't it? A
line as inline element doesn't even _sound_ logical.
Again, those breaks do not exist simply in visual presentation but
are part of the essential structure, dictated by the rhythmic and
metrical demands of the verse, but I suspect we may have to settle
for disagreeing about that.
I think our different views are perhaps that you seem to regard
the "lines" of the verse as being separate individual entities
whereas I see them as inseparable parts of one entity with the
break representing a hiatus in delivery rather than as actual
separation. In my view, there is a definite logical distinction
between verses but not between the elements which make up each
verse.
If we accept that the use of the word "line" is a convenient but
actually inaccurate description of the segments of a verse, then
regarding each segment as an inline element is perfectly logical.
I do not write songs in lines, I write them in verses. The
smallest self-contained semantic element in a series of verses,
whether song or poem, should be the verse. Which is why they are
usually organised in verses.
So perhaps our different views as to how they should best be
marked up can be summed up as different interpretations of the
word "lines" in the context of verse.
>Incidentally, a poem _could_ be marked up as a list, <ul>
element. The main reason against this idea is that the default rendering is
bulleted.
No, the main reason against this idea is that it's daft. You might
as well paint stripes on a donkey and call it a zebra.
Anything could be marked up as a list and a rationalisation
provided for it. That doesn't mean that there's the slightest
sense in doing it. Your suggestion of using divs has very sensible
logic to it, even if I disagree with the basis of that logic, but
calling it a list has none.
The only honest argument I can see for describing the parts of a
verse as a list is simply as a formalistic way of avoiding the use
of <br>. Doing something purely as a way of avoiding doing
something else does not of itself confer correctness, nor even any
point.
Incidentally, I have no ideological position on all this and I'm
not interested in defending any particular construct. I am simply
interested in what the most effective and accurate method might be
in the unique circumstances of marking up verse. The sole reason I
use the method I use is because I believe it to be the best
available, the most logical, which degrades most gracefully,
validates without error, and which more accurately reflects the
structure of the content than all the alternatives I've seen. So
far. When I see a method which better delivers on those criteria,
I'll happily adopt it.
--
DG
