The explanation for the i element has had a rough history: I remember wording such as "the i element is for content that's normally put into italics" lol. Demon

The explanation for the i element has had a rough history: I remember wording such as "the i element is for content that's normally put into italics" lol. Demonstrating the whole concept of "semantic" HTML is simply flawed at a fundamental level: HTML is a vocabulary for casual academic publishing, with headings, footers, lists, etc. for structuring, and other very specific elements (such as <var>) typical of such use case. But what about other pieces of text, such as threaded discussions like this page? For some, using a vocabulary fit for a specific purpose with mapping to a rendering vocabulary is the entire point of markup. "Semantic" HTML seems to be pushed after the fact as a justification for CSS to have syntax completely separate from HTML, reserving attributes for "behavior". The idea that markup attributes shouldn't contain style info is laughable when they're there for the exact reason to associate typed properties with elements.