title: How can I apply a style to a span of text that transcends other elements' boundaries?
body: <p>Let's suppose I have the following paragraphs:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;p&gt;one two &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt; three &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; four five &lt;/p&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now let's suppose I want to style the words two, three, and four green, in place, without having any other effect on the document's structure or other layout. I basically want a <code>&lt;span&gt;</code> that transcends block level elements like <code>&lt;p&gt;</code>s. How can I accomplish this most simply? I could</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;p&gt;o &lt;span&gt;t&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;t&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;f&lt;/span&gt; f&lt;/p&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But that makes things really messy due to the fact that I employ a markdown parser and have my own custom preprocessing code. What could I do so that there's only one "style begin" mark, and only one "style end" mark per contiguous length of green text?</p>