What is Semantic Markup?

Definitions

• Syntax - Sentence structure and language rules.
• Semantics - The study of relationships between signs and symbols and the meaning they represent.
• In spoken language; syntax relates to punctuation and grammar and semantics relates to the meaning conveyed.

• Semantic Markup -
  • "Means [...] that you use tags that have specific meaning assigned to them, either in the (X)HTML specification, or in generally accepted use." - Mark Pilgrim
  • "As much as possible, the tags surrounding the content of a document should describe what that content is and/or what it's for" - Jason Kottke (falsely attributed to Douglas Bowman, oops...)

• HTML is for describing the structure and meaning of content - NOT for describing presentation.
• Semantics of HTML 4 & XHTML 1 are identical, the syntax is different
• "The Semantic Web" is related to, but not covered by this presentation