The HTML q element can sometimes be useful. Discuss.

[r12a]

I figured it would be good to start a thread where we can address the wider questions that kept popping up on the other thread that was focused on the styling in the HTML5 rendering section.

Here we get to put pros and cons for the existence of the q element, suggestions for improving it, advice about when to not use it, ideas about what's needed above and beyond it, etc. I think CSS styling of quotes is probably in scope too, since it's hard to talk about the markup without the styling support.

It may help to limit the scope, however, just to actual quotations, rather than all the other things people stick 'quote marks' around, just in order to prevent a situation of herding cats.

So please reply to this. It's likely to be a long thread with diverse opinions. That's ok, but please try not to make unsubstantiated assertions. Please use examples where you can, to help people get your point. And please be kind to other thread participants.

I'll contribute some ideas later when i can carve out some time. I do have some concerns. At some point, i'll try to summarise the pros, cons and suggestions.

ri

[r12a]

This thread has been running already for a short while on the www-international and public-digipub-ig mailing lists. A subthread developed on the www-international list, that digipub readers may not have seen.

Follow this link to see the previous emails on this thread (including the www-international fork): https://www.w3.org/Mail/flatten/index?subject=RE%3A+The+HTML+q+element+can+sometimes+be+useful.+Discuss.&list=www-international

Please continue the thread here, rather than on the mailing lists.

[asmusf]

Thanks for putting this on github.

[r12a]

John Cowan Wed, 27 Apr 2016 12:29:34 -0400

Florian Rivoal scripsit:

quotation marks do change based on the styling of the document (more so for blockquote than for q, but still).

I'd like to see evidence for this in the case of inline quotations in ordinary published work.

As it happens, the chapter of a book i'm reading just did that.

Here's the explanation:

Quotations from Priscus and other original sources appear in this different typeface to distinguish them from my own words.

And here's an example of usage from some pages later:

A significant pause for explanation and recognition, then Attila's message. ‘Theodosius is the son of a nobly born father. So am I, Attila, the son of my father the King of the Huns, Mundzuk. I have preserved my noble lineage, but Theodosius has not. Who now is the barbarian, and who the more civilized?’ The answer is obvious: the bag proves the point. Theodosius, by plotting the assassination of Attila, his superior, his master, has acted like a rebellious slave. As a result, Attila declared, he would not absolve Theodoseus from blame unless he handed over the eunuch for punishment.

[johnwcowan]

So what we have here is a case where dialogue invented by the author (of a non-fiction book) gets quotation marks, and actual quotations from the sources that are not merely quoted but are reasserted by the author (that is, if they are false, he is making a false claim) are put in a different font (not merely bold italic, as shown here; see the Google Books view). Which, if either, should be marked up with q elements?

[asmusf]

Both? With different CSS class attributes?

[undivaga]

First case: Is the dialogue cited or remembered by the author or any character in the book? Or is the dialogue simply rendered in the novel, simultaneously to the main action? If the dialogue is taken from the past, it is a quotation. It is fictional, but it is true in the novel's universe, so you can use <q>. But if the dialogue happens during the main action it is not a quotation because it is coming to life while being read. Second case: Let's think of an example. Churchill never said this: “The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists” Many people think that Churchill really said that once, but he didn't. If the author thinks that Churchill really said that sentence, he should mark up it with <q>, even if quotation marks are not used. <p>Churchill said that <q class="noquotationmarks">the fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists</q> and I agree.</p>

Cheers Rebeca from Cornac

[asmusf]

Now, let's watch out that the messages really show what we are discussing

Text as shown (screen shot)

Message source (screen shot):

Note the "q" element being interpreted.

A./

[undivaga]

Sorry, I did not see the reference to 'non-fiction book', but that's not relevant to me. In respect to a book, something quoted is true if it is consistent to the book's universe and if the reader is intended to believe it is true in that universe. If the reader is intended to believe that the quoted text is not true, the <q> element should not be used.

Cheers

[r12a]

There seems to be an inclination to use the q element any place there are quotation marks. This is not my understanding of the intent of the usage described in the HTML5 spec, which says:

The q element represents some phrasing content quoted from another source. ... Content inside a q element must be quoted from another source, whose address, if it has one, may be cited in the cite attribute. The source may be fictional, as when quoting characters in a novel or screenplay. ... The q element must not be used in place of quotation marks that do not represent quotes; for example, it is inappropriate to use the q element for marking up sarcastic statements. [https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-html51-20160310/textlevel-semantics.html#the-q-element]

I think that part of the confusion in the discussion can be put down to the lack of precision in the way the words 'quotes', and 'quotations' even, are used in English: meaning quoted from another source, meaning dialogues, meaning pull-quotes, or meaning anything else with quotation marks around it. Whereas Rebeca says that some languages such as Spanish make a linguistic distinction between quotations and dialogue, for example.

I think the HTML5 definition is fairly specific, and points away from use for dialogue (because it says 'quoted from another source'), and perhaps usefully so, since dialogue indeed entails a number of different features, not least including the need to bridge around the ',he said ' kind of interposition.

So for the example about Attila the Hun above, i think that probably the bold-italic text, which represents text lifted from the translation by R C Blockley of Priscus' writings, should be enclosed in a q element (as a test, you can point to the source for that), whereas the invented dialogue (which is the bit actually enclosed in quotation marks in the book) would not be wrapped in a q element, because it is dialogue, not 'phrasing content quoted from another source'.

Btw, i deliberately chose a simple example above. A more typical example from the book would be something like

then Chrysaphius picks up Edika's comment with a hint at what he has in mind, speaking through Vigilas, who becomes a shadow: ‘You too, Edika, would become the owner of wealth and of rooms with golden ceilings if you should ever decide to work for the Romans.’

So, following the logic outlined above, only the bold-italic part of the sentence would be inside a q element, and the quotes would be just part of the text (or might in some future time be captured by a dialogue element of some kind).

[textexin]

It is news to me that a quotation needs to be true. I thought it only needs to represent exact wording. Whether the person actually said it, is irrelevant.

So Bogart never said "Play it again Sam". He said "Play it Sam".

Both would be quoted and use the q element.

And quotes can be used in a question where the truth is being established: Did you say 'I am guilty'?

Am I mistaken?

[textexin]

edited to clarify who said what.when

On 4/29/2016 1:42 PM, Tex Texin wrote:

Am I mistaken?

On 29/04/2016 22:14, Asmus Freytag (c) wrote:

No! I think the element, given that it exists, is fine for any text that appears inline, is set of from the surrounding text (normally) by balanced paired marks OR semantically is a quotation in the strict sense. One element of "q" is that it can be nested (and when nested, the text uses some convention for alternating the marks. I think the train has left the station for defining any tightly limited semantics. Even "scare quotes" should not be ruled out, because they would (I assume) show the same tendency of being rendered with alternating marks if nested (for example if a statement with scare quotes was itself quoted).

Thanks Asmus.

I agree about the scare quotes. If the W3C prefers the q element to be used only for actual quotations (true or not), then the only way to make the point and limit the violations of that philosophy would be to offer another element for bracketing text for non-quotation purposes. I propose the <air-quotes> or <bunny-ears> element for wrapping text intended to be bracketed for sarcasm, irony, etc. but not a quotation. :-)

It would probably find all sorts of uses, especially where so many people are using emoji to markup text with emotions. They could use css classes to precede, follow, or bracket text with emojis for laughing, tongue in cheek, surprise, etc.based on their frequent use of certain reactions.

[r12a]

[reinstated comment from John Cowan]

I have no trouble accepting the HTML5 definition, but I don't think it can exclude dialogue. Consider this passage:

 The President said today at a press conference:  "You bear
 everything alone, in this office, but once in a while you have
 to at least try to share it with somebody else."

Now on your argument, this would be a proper use of a q element, because a source (namely the President) is being quoted, but this variant text would not be a proper use:

 "I think it would," the President said.  "You bear everything
 alone, in this office, but once in a while you have to at least
 try to share it with somebody else."

because this is a quotation from the 1959 novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury, and the President referred to is part of the fiction. (I could have reworded this to avoid the interrupted quotation, but I think that's orthogonal to the present case. Interrupted quotations are less common in reportage than in fiction, but they do happen.)

Is that really what you mean? If so, I think (with Asmus) that the distinction is untenable. Quoting what a person says is as much a quotation as quoting a written source, and quoting a fictional person (from within the fiction) is the same as quoting a real person.

Added later: It occurs to me that by source you may mean 'written source' exclusively, but if so, I think that's an overly restrictive use of the term.

I'm going to start in the realm of the practical, wander into the realm of the philosophical, and come back to the practical (which is what i'm most interested in) in this comment.

Now on your argument, this would be a proper use of a q element, because a source (namely the President) is being quoted

Actually, it wouldn't qualify per my argument. I was considering the use of the q element to be as described in the HTML5 spec, which says that the content of the q element "must be quoted from another source, whose address, if it has one, may be cited in the cite attribute". To me this indicates an expectation that you are copying text from another place, not quoting someone saying something.

I'm not doing exegesis on some biblical HTML5 text here, but trying to tease apart semantics, in order to justify at least a limited area where something practical can be applied.

I think that's an overly restrictive use of the term.

It's certainly a restrictive use of the term 'quote', but it may be a reasonable restriction to impose on a q element. I think there a justification for the proposition that by using the q element, you're just saying: Here's some text i'm copying from elsewhere. I'm not sure that that is such an unreasonable restriction, given that our marked up content is a textual form which places high value on links to other textual forms.

Certainly, that leaves open the question of how one could/should(?) mark up text that happens to be between quotation marks because it represents what someone said, a variant of which, with it's own idiosynchratic rules, is quoted dialogue, but maybe if we didn't happen to use the same quotation marks around those things (and by the way, also for 'scare quotes') it wouldn't seem such a strange distinction. In other words, perhaps we should create new markup for those instances based on the semantics involved rather than the (english) terminology or the fact that they also use quotation marks.

Quoting what a person says is as much a quotation as quoting a written source

Perhaps only in the sense that we call both 'quoting' in english? If the q element had been called the 'citation' element (using the Google definition 'a quotation from or reference to a book, paper, or author, especially in a scholarly work'), or an excerpt element, we might not find it so restrictive.

So i suppose i'm arguing that we should accept the limited scope of the q element as described in the HTML5 spec, and, if we need to, propose new elements to cover the other semantics that happen (in some cases) to coincidentally also use quotation marks.

[johnwcowan]

I think the ship has sailed on using the q element for excerpts from textual sources exclusively.

[aphillips]

I think the ship has sailed on using the q element for excerpts from textual sources exclusively.

But the ship hasn't sailed on creating best practices and guidelines that say that's what it is best used for. Other uses may present themselves from time-to-time and existing content may not use it that way. But if you do use it, this is what it's optimized for.

We can't fix the past, but we can keep people from injuring themselves. Explaining that it's part of HTML's "legacy" and having it work for some use case as well as it can might be the best we can do at limiting the damage?

[asmusf]

On 5/3/2016 2:33 PM, aphillips wrote:

I think the ship has sailed on using the q element for excerpts
from textual sources exclusively.

But the ship hasn't sailed on creating best practices and guidelines that say that's what it is best used for. Other uses may present themselves from time-to-time and existing content may not use it that way. But if you do use it, this is what it's optimized for.

We can't fix the past, but we can keep people from injuring themselves. Explaining that it's part of HTML's "legacy" and having it work for some use case as well as it can might be the best we can do at limiting the damage?

We were just discussing the complex default styling that we thought was appropriate for the "q" element in multilingual environments.

The same complex styling is (potentially) appropriate for all types of text that are "quotations" by virtue of being (by default) surrounded by quotation marks.

If you want model where "HTML" means "deep semantic markup" of text that is fairly specific that is one thing. But then that should not be conflated with default styling.

The styling we were discussing had to do both with cross-language embedding, as well as with nested embedding. I think there's an argument to be made for treating everything that is capable of exhibiting these two issues the same.

That would cover "scare quotes", because if they were part of a quote, they behave like a nested quote. It may not cover the use of quotation marks around titles of papers, sections or books (I'm not sure a) how these nest, and b) whether they are likely to nest except in very unusual cases.

A./

PS: I find the current HMTL recommendation only slightly less bizarre than the suggestion that one distinguish quotes based on their truth value.

[undivaga]

PS: I find the current HMTL recommendation only slightly less bizarre than the suggestion that one distinguish quotes based on their truth value.

The spec actually discourages the use of q as a stylistic resource for sarcasm, which is a form of irony, as explained by my dictionary:

The ironic form of simile, used in sarcasm, and some forms of litotes can emphasize one's meaning by the deliberate use of language which states the opposite of the truth, denies the contrary of the truth, or drastically and obviously understates a factual connection.

So I was using true only as a synonym of not ironic. Sorry if I couldn't express the concept accurately.

P.S. Edited comment. The first time I wrote the comment on the mobile version, so I couldn't use proper markup ro quote any source.

[r12a]

If you want model where "HTML" means "deep semantic markup" of text that is fairly specific that is one thing. But then that should not be conflated with default styling.

Why not? Semantics is what html markup is supposed to be about. Just about every html element has some kind of default styling applied to it.

Btw, where's the conflation taking place (other than in your comment)? This thread is about the usefulness or not of the q element. The styling discussion was a different thread.

[asmusf]

On 5/3/2016 11:14 PM, r12a wrote:

If you want model where "HTML" means "deep semantic markup" of
text that is fairly specific that is one thing. But then that
should not be conflated with default styling.

Why not? Semantics is what html markup is supposed to be about. Just about every html element has some kind of default styling applied to it.

Btw, where's the conflation taking place (other than in your comment)? This thread is about the usefulness or not of the q element. The styling discussion was a different thread.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/w3c/i18n-discuss/issues/1#issuecomment-216754402

Leaving this discussion.

[prlbr]

I was considering the use of the q element to be as described in the HTML5 spec, which says that the content of the q element "must be quoted from another source, whose address, if it has one, may be cited in the cite attribute". To me this indicates an expectation that you are copying text from another place, not quoting someone saying something.

@r12a If you shift the emphasis in the quotation from the WHATWG/W3C HTML specs a few words to the right, you may see the opposite message: "must be quoted from another source, whose address, if it has one, may be cited in the cite attribute". There does not need to be an address. To me this indicates that quoting someone saying something is valid. This is supported by the first example in the spec. Mind the word “said”:

Here is a simple example of the use of the q element:

<p>The man said <q>Things that are impossible just take
longer</q>. I disagreed with him.</p>

A similar example has been in spec in HTML 4.01 already:

The following example illustrates nested quotations with the Q element.

John said, <Q lang="en-us">I saw Lucy at lunch, she told me
<Q lang="en-us">Mary wants you
to get some ice cream on your way home.</Q> I think I will get
some at Ben and Jerry's, on Gloucester Road.</Q>