There seem to be a craze flying around the web with bloggers using the <del></del> tags to cross out content of a paragraph with supposed hilarious or dull consequences.
The other use of the <del> tag seems to be for visited links. Again I find this kind of annoying (sorry Andrew), as even though I may have visited a link such as the home link, but it doesn't mean I can't use it again, does it?
So I looked into it and discovered that the <del> tag should be used in conjunction with the <ins> tag, to display deleted and inserted values. The example given on the W3C site was
a dozen is 20 12 pieces!
So what does it mean for the semantics of the web, when people keep finding deleted content on sites and even links. Also what does it mean for screen readers and text browsers on devices such as phones that may not have the functionality to display text as deleted and inserted.
Personally I prefer the use of good old brackets for hilarity (or pointless comments that aren't really of any other importance), simple and universal (but perhaps not web 2.0 enough!).