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Re: how to write Roman numerals please

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Jan 4, 2012 3:24PM

2012-01-05 0:12, Lewis, Sunshine T. wrote:

> I currently use:
> <abbr title="Roman numeral four">IV</abbr>
>
> My logic is that "IV" could be considered an abbreviation of "Roman
> numeral four" but I've never gotten any feedback as to whether it works
> or not.

I guess assistive software might treat the title attribute more
seriously when attached to <abbr> than as attached to <span>, which
would be my first choice. Roman numerals aren't really abbreviations,
any more than "4" is an abbreviation of "foure", and there is no
semantic markup for them in HTML. But if there is some evidence that
<abbr> helps, I wouldn't be too picky.

I would however set

abbr { border: none; }

in a stylesheet, to prevent the confusing dotted underline that many
browsers draw under an <abbr> with title attribute.

If I used a title attribute for a Roman numeral, I would use the number
as spelled out, in the form required by the context, e.g. title="the
fourth". Surely we would like an expression like "George IV" to be read
as "George the fourth" rather than "George Roman numeral four", which
might make the listener wonder who George Roman is.

Yucca