You are here: Home > What's New > Is "Markup" a Noun or Verb?

Is "markup" a noun or a verb? Do you "markup data" or "wrap data in tags"?

Problem Statement

Consider this data:

    Nikon D40

Here I did "something" to the data:

    <camera>Nikon D40</camera>

Which is preferred way of expressing what I did to the data:

  1. I marked up the data.
  2. I wrapped the data in tags.
  3. I wrapped the data in a start-tag/end-tag pair.
  4. I wrapped the data in markup.
  5. I embedded the data in markup.
  6. I enclosed the data in markup.
  7. I tagged the data.

"Markup" is a Noun, "Mark up" is a Verb

In the example above, I applied markup to the data. "markup" is a noun. Markup is applied to text (or other source material) to indicate how it is to be handled (e.g., formatted, processed, analyzed). Here is the markup that was applied to the data: <camera> and </camera>

In the example above, I did something to the data: I marked up the data. "mark up" is a verb. "mark up" identifies the process of adding markup to text.

Recap: Markup is a noun. Mark up (with space) is a verb.

It is not correct to use markup as a verb. Thus, this is not correct: I am going to markup the data.

Preferred Expression?

Of the above choices, most people preferred the first and last expressions: I marked up the data or I tagged the data. The former tends to be preferred by markup professionals, while the latter tends to be preferred as the popular culture expression.

Translation

This article was translated to Spanish by a student at the ibidem group (Translation Experts).

This article was translated to Punjabi, courtesy of the Bydiscountcodes team.

Artur Weber translated this article to Portuguese: https://www.homeyou.com/~edu/markup

Sandi Wolfe translated this article to Russian: http://www.opensourceinitiative.net/edu/is-markup-a-noun-or-verb

Diana Gomes translated this article to Portuguese: http://www.travel-ticker.com/translations/markup-a-noun-or-verb

Jimmy Anastasovski translated this article to Bulgarian: https://equipmyfinance.com/translations/is-markup-noun-bulgarian/

Jordan Silaen translated this article to Indonesian: https://www.chameleonjohn.com/translations/markup-a-noun-or-verb-Indonesian

Anna Chekovsky translated this article to French: http://www.teilestore.de/edu/?p=13144

Petra Vlasic translated this article to Macedonian: http://makescience.net/is-markup-a-noun-or-verb/

Petra Vlasic translated this article to Bosnian: http://petravlasic.net/is-markup-a-noun-or-verb/

Sergey Ivanov translated this article to Belarusian: Belarusian translation

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following people for their input to this document:

  • Mike Brenner
  • Len Bullard
  • Roger Costello
  • Steve DeRose
  • Greg Hunt
  • Robert Koberg
  • Deborah Aleyne Lapeyre
  • Jim Melton
  • Mark Shellenberger
  • Simon St. Laurent

Last Updated: January 3, 2017