HTML5 text-level semantics
Besides the structural and grouping 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://www.w3.org/TR/html5/text-level-semantics.html#text-level-semantics). Let's take a look at a few common examples.
The <b> element
Historically, the <b>
element meant "make this bold" (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/graphics.html#edef-B). This was from back in the day when stylistic choices were part of the markup. However, you can now officially use it merely as a styling hook in CSS as the HTML5 specification now declares that <b>
is:
"The b element represents 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...