Barry wrote:
> Floated list items are rendered left to right, which isn't the way most 
> people read lists. When the ul tag is used but the list still "ordered" 
> (see http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2005Jun/0011.html  ) 
> it's preferable for each column of a multicolumn list (a list with 
> floated li elements) to be ordered from top to bottom.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean.  Are you floating the li elements 
in a way that achieves to columns of list items, like this?

1. item one    2. item two
3. item three  4. item four

However, you actually want a way for it to be rendered like this:

1. item one    3. item three
2. item two    4. item four

If so, that's a presentational issue to be handled by a style sheet.  In 
fact, it can already be achieved better using CSS3 Multi-column layout 
properties [1].  Unfortunately, support for it is currently limited. 
AFAIK, Mozilla has some support for it already.

> I think that floating list items is one of the few if not the only style 
> that could change semantics inappropriately.

Styling does not change semantics, it only affects the way the content 
is perceived.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/ 

-- 
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/