Nice collection I put together of sans-serif fonts: Armata, Abel, Varela, Varela Round, Coda, Gruppo

Where are we at right now in terms of the best markup for using icon fonts? Let's cover some options I think are currently the best.

You want the icon to enhance a word
You want the icon to stand alone but still be functional or informational

And our major goals here are:

As good of semantics as we can get
As little awkwardness for screen readers as possible

This ground has been treaded before, but I think the following techniques are a small step forward.