Harold's Home

Matthew Thomas doesn't get it: When semantic markup goes bad. Matt May does: Understanding semantics.

I won't repeat Matt's arguments but here's a small addition that may amuse you.
Here's what Matthew writes about the proper use of <var>: E = m c².
Here's his code: <var>E</var> = <var>m</var> <var>c</var><sup>2</sup>.

Last time I checked the speed of light (c) wasn't variable but a constant.
To be fair to Matthew, there appears to be some discussion on this (do a google search for the headline) but current thinking is that the speed of light is indeed a constant.

Of course it is likely that Matthew is confused and merely wants to show his Mad Semantic HTML Skillz by using the <var> element but why are E, m and c variables but is 'squared' not one? This simply makes no sense at all.

Which reminds me: I really should read up on MathML but that will have to wait for another day.