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

[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.