Take a look at this jsfiddle for a demonstration: http://jsfiddle.net/FrJRA/1/ and observe how the border of the inner span extends beyond the boundaries of its containing div.
I have a basic understanding of what's going on. However, the question that remains is why. Why doesn't the div automatically adjust to accommodate the increased height of the span?
I am aware that applying display: inline-block
would solve this issue. But I'm curious about the reasoning behind why using inline
fails to expand the parent container as expected.