The Harmless Yank Hobby

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 11/06/2006:

> Links of course can be shown
> explicitly, highlighted, given icons, "buttons," what
> have you, but tehy need not be ...

More often than not they are. But even if not, their status as a 
hyperlink is indicated when the reader runs his or her cursor over the 
word or phrase.

The point being, though, that the hyperlink is something which is 
inserted in the text by the author. It's not just something which has 
been randomly googled up by a reader (often on the slenderest of 
pretexts).

> "a facultative act," "following a link is not
> compulsory,"

I.e., a reader makes an assumption that a specific reference to 
something "outside the text" has been placed, overtly or covertly, 
"into the text" by the author.

Orson Welles or Major Major -- which do you want it to be?

best