just like all those other parentheticals

[cimorene]

Dear Badfic Writers,

Brackets ({}) and square brackets ([]) have their own purposes. They are not just a pair of parentheses dressed up in their own very special and unique snowflake outfits for when you are writing a story and it doesn't seem special enough with plain punctuation.

Thanks for your attention to this matter,
cim

Comments

[revulo.livejournal.com]

What IS the purpose of brackets? I've only seen them in mathematics that I can remember...

*admits to using square brackets for her script form RPing out of habit, despite knowing it's more than likely grammatically incorrect*

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Besides being used in scholarly texts for clarification, omission, etc, and nested inside parenthetical statements, they're often used for stage directions in various forms of script formatting, I believe.

[pixxers.livejournal.com]

Ehehe.

[schonste.livejournal.com]

I hate seeing them used as parentheses -- since you are reigning champ of knowing this stuff, would there actually be any reason to use {} and [] in a fanfic?

I've seen <>, but that's telepathy and that was spawned from published books. Admittedly, the Animorphs series, but THEY WERE PUBLISHED.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

Square brackets are supposed to be for parenthetical statements nested inside other parentheticals, which does happen from time to time. As far as I know, squirrelly brackets are for a third layer of the same type of thing, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it happen.

[schonste.livejournal.com]

I've seen in grammar books that only parentheses end up being used within parentheses and more and more. There's actually a really funny grammar book that I can't remember the title of where the author really emphasizes this by pointing out something (and then explains further (even though it's not really necessary (but you could say that it's the only way to get the point across (yet one would expect that the one reading this would understand the complexities of parentheses (but perhaps they are reading this because they do not understand and do not care about complexities (but shouldn't anyone who actually reads about grammar care (ah well, it doesn't really matter))))))).

And that is the proper use.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I'm not positive, but I think it's more like they've historically been used both ways, but that a trend towards mandating the alternating ([( pattern and excluding nested parentheses to avoid confusion probably started in the 18th or 19th century, which was the time of the first major trend of writing prescriptive grammar/style guides for English.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen them as third-layer brackets before, but I guess that doesn't come up very often. Wikipedia supports that, though.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the proper punctuation for telepathy is still pretty much up to the individual author... although I really wish they wouldn't use single quotes.

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

this entry caused me to look up brackets on wikipedia. there is an entry! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brackets#Types_of_brackets) oh wikipedia. you are flawed, and yet, so excellent. ♥

[revulo.livejournal.com]

This has made me so, so happy XD

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I was astonished that the usual proofreading use of curly brackets wasn't mentioned...

[norah.livejournal.com]

O.O NFW.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

If only I were lying.

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I have enough bracket issues from coding ;)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, coding. Where at least he community takes for granted that your parentheticals are supposed to be closed.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

So people think [] and {} are, like, custom skins for parentheses?

You know, in my day, we just changed the font color.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Sadly, yes, some people do. :( I imagine their train of thought goes like, "Man, these little SQUARE parentheses are so cute and add such an air of individuality to the text! They're not all boring like regular ones! I wonder why everyone doesn't use them more?"