From http://reference.sitepoint.com/html/var:
The var element is used to indicate that the text is a variable and
shouldn’t be taken literally. Instead, it’s an example that should be
replaced with your own value.
Also in
http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/html-37-steps-perfect-markup/2 at
item 29.:
A common misconception is that var should be used for marking up
variables in programming code samples.