Publishable or Published?

[Todd Walton]

I have a question.  The Markdown page says, "The idea is that a
Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain
text, without looking like it's been marked up with tags or formatting
instructions."  Is it the goal of Markdown-formatted text to be
*published* in plain text and HTML, as well as *publishable* in both? 
(A fine line, admittedly.  Perhaps too fine.)  Obviously the
"publishable" part is necessary, but is there an expectation that some
people will use Markdown-formatted text without actually translating
it to HTML?

-todd