Definition

This element is used in two contexts:

• To offer a second version of a word or phrase that is used in the text, for example, to add a modern version of an out-dated historical term. The word is added so that the document will found if only the modern version is used for searching and the word may also be displayed next to the historical term as an aid to the reader, possibly distinguished by a mechanism such as square brackets, . For example, to show the modern spelling of the disease smallpox and to ensure that searches for the modern term find a page where the word “small-pox” is used instead, the text could be tagged:

  ... small-pox <alt-term display="yes">smallpox</alt-term>

• To complete words that are elided, illegible, or hyphenated across structural boundaries in the text. The shortened or obliterated word can be displayed with the page, but the full term can also be provided for search engines and increased user understanding.

<!ELEMENT  alt-term     (#PCDATA)                                    >

...
<p>MADNESS, in all its complicated forms, is one
of the most afflicting dispensations that can
befal <alt-term alt-term-type="modernization"
display="no">befall</alt-term> human nature.
To mitigate the miseries of so deplorable a
malady, and co-operate in the restoration of
those who were lost to civil and religious
society, was impressed as a duty on the minds
of many members of the Society of Friends,
more particularly as it regarded those who
professed the tenets of their church. It was
believed that a mild and appropriate system of
treatment, in which, during lucid intervals,
or a state of convalescence, the patient might
enjoy the society of those who were of similar
habits and opinions, would be productive of
peculiar advantages. They justly thought, that
the indiscriminate mixture of persons of
opposite religious sentiments and practices;
of the profligate and the virtuous; the
profane and the serious; would very probably
check the progress of returning reason.</p>
...

...
<p>In pursuance of this laudable object,
proposals were, in the year 1811, made to the
Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia, from two of
the Quarterly Meetings, to make provision for
such of their members as were deprived of
their reason. The consideration of the 
subject was referred to a committee, who 
sub-<alt-term alt-term-type="hyphenation"
display="no">submitted</alt-term> 
<page-start><page-num>4</page-num></page-start> 
<alt-term alt-term-type="hyphenation"
display="no">submitted</alt-term>mitted their
report in the following year, which was
adopted by the meeting; and, in consequence of
this conclusion, a plan and proposals for an
asylum were circulated among Friends. This
plan was not restricted to the admission of
members only, but included all those who
professed the principles of the society, under
whose care and notice it was to be wholly
conducted.</p>
...