--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "i18n@..." <i18n@...> wrote:

>
> Nicholas Bodley wrote:

> E.g. technically speaking, tables would be verboten too, but it is
> usually easier to use the table tags then a tone of <div> tags, and it
> could be more readable with tables too,

If readability were an admissible issue, <sub> and <sup> would be
preserved. Tags such as <element_count> and <charge_on_named_object>
are just two verbose, and I think unwieldy for everyday use. For
example, suppose I wished to express Hg_2^{2+} in a discussion of what
'mercurous' meant in a set of pages not normally concerned with
chemistry. To many of us, subscript and superscript are as much a
part of the semantics as the use of capitals, and it's not surprising
that most basic Latin letters, and all Arabic numerals, have
superscript and subscript forms encoded in Unicode. Should "For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall have everlasting life." be written in XML as
"For <God>god</God> so loved the world that <God>he</God> gave
<God>his</God> only begotten <God>son</God>, that whoever believes in
<God>him</God> shall have everlasting life."? I am presuming that
<God> (= one true god) and <god> (= one god of many) would be
distinguished - certainly the latter does not require capitalisation
of pronouns, but it would call for a cartouche in rendering Ancient
Egyptian.

Richard.