Posted by Toby Inkster on 07/25/06 07:00

Gideon wrote:

> I figured it out. Damn! Just one "curly brace" or whatever those squiggley
> brackets are called was mistakenly put in as a regular bracket
> (parentheses?) symbol.

Parentheses: ()
Brackets: []
Braces: {}

Although "brackets" can be used as a generic term to describe all three.

In standard typography, parentheses are used to enclose additional
comments or information (when a sentence would be grammatically correct
without it). An alternative -- which many consider neater -- is to use
em-dashes. On the other hand, brackets are used to indicate ommissions,
and occasionally clarifications in quoted text. e.g.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler [...] to suffer
[... from bad things or] To die: to sleep.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact

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