[chrismorgan]

> I didn't mention the doctype because I believe it isn't strictly speaking an element, just a preamble, but you're right, it's required as well.

Funny thing, when I read “the only mandatory element in a valid HTML5 document”, I interpreted “element” in its generic English sense (piece, thing) rather than its HTML sense (node of type element, as distinct from text/comment/doctype/other-types-only-found-in-XML-syntax nodes).

[debugnik]

True, I guess I would too if I were a native English speaker. Even when the words are almost identical in my language, I read them as programming jargon before plain English.