Answer - For reasons on internationalisation XML elements are case sensitive. A choice had to be made, and lowercase won on the day. Tags may not overlap This is emphasized text and bold text becomes This is emphasized text is bold text Only certain tags may nest inside other tags Looking at the dtd for xhtml, the definition of the "ol" element is: This implies that an order list, "ol", element may not contain paragraph tags or body text, just list items.

These are some of my favorite animals:
1. octopus
2. shrew
3. lemur
and my most favorite
4. meerkats

These are some of my favorite animals:

1. octopus
2. shrew
3. lemur
4. meerkats