HTML5 text-level semantics

Besides the structural elements we've looked at, HTML5 also revises a few tags that used to be referred to as inline elements. The HTML5 specification now refers to these tags as text-level semantics (http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#text-level-semantics). Let's take a look at a few common examples.

The <b> element

Although we may have often used the <b> element merely as a styling hook, it actually meant "make this bold". However, you can now officially use it merely as a styling hook in CSS as the HTML5 specification now declares that <b> is:

…a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes without conveying any extra importance and with no implication of an alternate voice or mood, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a review, actionable words in interactive text-driven software, or an article lede.

The <em> element

OK, hands up, I've often used <em> merely as a styling hook...