[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

3) <em> is shorter than <span class="yadayada"> and designed specifically for emphasizing words. So it is semantically more correct.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I have seen is when text inside italics are wanted to be different be it not italic, you get another set of <i>. You don't get <em> to show non-italic.

In all the Typography + Style Guides + books I have digitized, italics/emphasis inside of italics flips between Italic/Roman. So if the entire book's <h3>s were italic:

<h3>Shakespeare's <i>Romeo & Juliet</i></h3>

CSS:

h3 {
	font-style: italic;
}

h3 i {
	font-style: normal;
}

I have seen 2 layers deep quite often, but I admit I haven't seen one ever go 3+ layers deep.

I assume the rule would be very similar to multiple sets of quotes inside of quotes (or brackets inside of parentheses)... the deeper you go, you flip between Outer/Inner/Outer/Inner.

I tried to come up with an example of 3 deep italics... and it just looked absolutely wrong having layer 1 match layer 3. So I made up something I believe works:

1st layer (Italic) = Italic
2nd layer (Emphasis) = Roman
3rd layer (Emphasis) = Bold

1st layer = Roman
2nd layer (Emphasis) = Italic
3rd layer (Emphasis) = Bold/Italic

Results in this:

Spoiler:

<p>Samuel Jackson stepped into the aisle while drawing his gun. <i>Is that some <em>mother <em>f-ing</em> snakes</em> on this <em>mother <em>f-ing</em></em> plane?</i></p>

<p>“Enough is enough! I have had it with these <em>mother <em>f-ing</em> snakes</em> on this <em>mother <em>f-ing</em></em> plane!”</p>

with this CSS:

i em {
	font-style: normal;
}

i em em, em em {
	font-weight: bold;
}

My Inspiration (Warning, foul language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubLRB7tb78Q

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have never seen <em> used as anything other than an alternate for <i>. [...] This not sayng that <em> cannot be used, it's that it's not used.

This is absolutely absurd. I can't seriously believe you typed this out with a straight face. Many real-life examples were laid out in the previous posts of use-cases with mixed <i> and <em>.

Now, if you want to get into Typography... there are a few alternate methods of displaying emphasis that AREN'T italics (letterspacing and/or smallcaps):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphas...Letter_spacing

Those aren't used as often in English books today, but those methods were prominent in older books. Just because <em> defaults to italics TODAY doesn't mean it always has to.

Also, different languages may also have different rules. Just because <em> = italics in English doesn't mean all languages do.

Side Note #1: Anyway, I was reading more into the Text-to-Speech angle. JAWS is one of the leading Screen Readers:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/JAW...Headquarters01

I was taking a much closer look at their documentation:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/Tra...ds_Schemes.htm

and they mentioned a few relevant methods in Text-to-Speech that I hadn't previously thought of:

• Assigning Sounds to HTML Elements
  
  • For example, assigning a certain ding sound which plays before you hit a specific tag (like <em>).
• Create a Scheme to Speak Bold Text Using the Bold Voice Alias
  
  • "You can use voice aliases to have JAWS announce certain items, attributes, or states in a different voice. In this section, you will assign a voice alias to bold text."

Also, on a semi-related note, it seems like JAWS (and other Screen Readers) already have support for Multi-Language markup with HTML lang. Here is a sample video showing the test page being read:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45R0pb8YwFE

The ereader TTSes definitely have some catching up to do. :P

Side Note #2: It also seems like JAWS also has support for a lot more languages (and variants of voices) than I initially thought. They call them Synthesizers:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/Downloads/synthesizers

English (US) has 5 females + 2 males.
English (UK) has 2 females and 3 males.
English (AU) has 1 female + 1 male.
English (South African) has 1.
English (Scottish) has 1.
English (Irish) has 1.
English (Indian) has 3.

Now BR could have his Canterbury Tales read by 20 different English voices! No Middle English yet though.