# Abbr tags (tooltips) using link syntax

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/abbr-tags-tooltips-using-link-syntax/965>\
**Category:** Extensions\
**Created:** [December 16, 2014, 9:00am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/abbr-tags-tooltips-using-link-syntax/965 "2014-12-16T09:00:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Crissov](https://talk.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/crissov/32/1455_2.png) [@Crissov](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/Crissov)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/abbr-tags-tooltips-using-link-syntax/965/5 "2015-06-15T14:59:32Z")

</div>

I believe it helps graceful fallback, hence backwards compatibility, to throw [a colon and a space](http://johnmacfarlane.net/babelmark2/?normalize=1&text=%5Babbr%5D(%3A+%22expansion%22)) in there. That pseudo URI is really unobtrusive.

```markdown
[abbr](: "expansion")

```

My preferred unified abbreviation and term definition syntax, however, includes straight apostrophe or quotation marks and round parentheses:

```markdown
'expansion' (abbr)

'definition' (optional text: "term")

```

(Details, like number and type of apostrophes, are of course open to improvement. The space before opening parenthesis may need to be suppressed.)

---

_[View the full topic](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/abbr-tags-tooltips-using-link-syntax/965)._