Why are some presentational elements like , and still included?
The inclusion of these elements is a largely pragmatic decision based upon their widespread usage, and their usefulness for use cases which are not covered my more specific elements. While there are a number of common use cases for italics which are covered by more specific elements, such as emphasis (em), citations (cite), definitions (dfn) and variables (var), there are many other use cases which are not covered well by these elements. For example, a taxonomic designation, a technical term, an idiomatic phrase from another language, a thought, or a ship name. Similarly, although a number of common use cases for bold text are also covered by more specific elements such as strong emphasis (strong), headings (h1-h6) or table headers (th); there are others which are not, such as key words in a document abstract or product names in a review. Some people argue that in such cases, the span element should be used with an appropriate class name and associated stylesheet. However, the b and i
