Posted by John Salerno on 01/26/06 16:44

I understand that you shouldn't use these tags to italicize or bold
text, but what exactly is meant when you want to "emphasize" text? It
seems like any use of <em> is somehow tied to the fact that it will use
italics, and I wonder if people would use it as much if it didn't. So
I'm trying to grasp how you really use it for markup only.

Also, as an example, what if I had a sentence like this:

"The word void in a function indicates that there is no return type."

If I'd like 'void' to stand out from the rest of the sentence (and
ideally have it italicized), should I use <em>? I know I should have
italics as a consideration when I choose <em>, but like I said it's hard
not to.

The only other option I can think of would be:

<span class="keyword">void</span>

but is that a better way to do it?

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