me:
>> (is that structure enough) for proper presentation?
lee:
> I want to be able to search on things that are in quotes.
> I want quoted text italicised.
>
> These are pragmatic reasons for making them tags.
I'll buy that.
> A theoretical reason: The text within <q>...</q> has a different Quality
> than that without: it is marked as being spoken, or as being cited, that is,
> it originated elsewhere. This is structure.
I guess that I stumbled upon the structural overlap between <BLOCKQUOTE> and
<Q> and the focus on presentation and the "...'..'..." case. If we want to
represent text that originates elsewhere, why not deprecate <BLOCKQUOTE> and
enrich <Q> with attributes that would fold in the functionality of <BLOCKQUOTE>
and describe more fully interesting things about quotes?
<!ELEMENT Q - - %body.content>
<!ATTLIST Q ALIGN (inline|block) #implied -- alignment spec for quote
CITE %URI #implied > -- citation for quote...could be to
-- UR[CNIL] or other bib info
> `We are very close', said Peter, `to the Taj Mahal'.
Becomes:
<Q align="inline" cite="urn:dns:kipling.ac.uk:justso1">We are very close</Q>
said Peter
<Q align="inline" cite="urn:dns:kipling.ac.uk:justso1">to the Taj Mahal</Q>
> A search for [find "close to the Taj Mahal" within a quotation] would fail.
But if the sequence of <Q> elements were preserved in the database and you knew
that both quotes had the same origin and were contained in the same sentance,
you could build a proximity search on near <Q>'s with the same cite attribute.
-marc