# Ordered vs Unordered List

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/ordered-vs-unordered-list/1945>\
**Category:** Spec\
**Created:** [December 24, 2015, 5:33am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/ordered-vs-unordered-list/1945 "2015-12-24T05:33:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 17

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**Author:** ![Dmitry](https://cdn.commonmark.org/user_avatar/talk.commonmark.org/dmitry/32/849_2.png) [@Dmitry](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/Dmitry)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/ordered-vs-unordered-list/1945/17 "2016-01-01T16:30:18Z")

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> [@tin-pot](#):
>
> Would you accept as “merit” of a term if that term itself is standardized, in our case for example in ISO 2382-23 Vocabulary – Part 32: Text processing, or if the term is defined in an International Standard related to the subject matter in question, in our case for example ISO 10646?

If you put a gun to my head, I’d pick “most widely used” over “standardized”. HTML 5 happens to be a standard (or [two](https://whatwg.org/html)), and yet

> [@tin-pot](#):
>
> consistency with “HTML 5 terminology” is very much a thing to avoid

The more familiar I become with the W3C standard, the more I tend agree with this statement.

> [@tin-pot](#):
>
> For example, re-naming \<HR\> to “thematic break” (did they really eliminate the phrase “horizontal rule” from the HTML spec?): this is IMO incredibly silly, if not to say stupid

Didn’t you get the [memo](http://talk.commonmark.org/t/horizontal-rule-or-thematic-break/912/9)? 😉

> [@tin-pot](#):
>
> “itemized list” instead of “unordered list”

Apparently, my command of English is insufficient for me to grasp this contraption. Doesn’t _itemized_ mean _consisting of items_, or simply a _list_?

> [@tin-pot](#):
>
> “enumerated list” […] instead of “ordered list”

I couldn’t imagine anyone having an issue with the term “ordered list”. Until now. 😄

> [@tin-pot](#):
>
> the text of a list item that starts with “-” or “+” or “_", or “1.” etc: this is “just markup”, and for example using “-” and "_” produces the same result anyway (as do for “ordered list items” the input markups “1.”, “2.”, or “3)”, IIRC

In CM the different unordered list markers determine whether an item belongs to an existing list (i.e.

```
- foo
+ bar

```

result in two distinct lists), whereas in ordered lists the first marker determines the start index.

As for presentation, the following is a perfectly standard HTML ordered list (the Arabic numerals are only provided for illustration):

甲、1  
乙、2  
丙、3  
丁、4  
戊、5  
己、6  
庚、7  
辛、8  
壬、9  
癸、10

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