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I didnt know this but the semantics do seem odd as we have <pre> and <code> right?

<pre> and <code> still require you to escape all HTML special symbols. <script> and <style> do not.

what about <xmp>?

I don't know what it does in practice, since it's obsolete. Heck, I've never even heard about it until right now.

I think HTML should have a dedicated tag for this, but sadly <script> is the closest thing that I know of.