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My fifth column last week on the uses of the
parenthesis should have been the last, but something happened that
constrains me to write one more time about the topic. In both the
print and Internet editions of The Times, all of the punctuation
marks that I had indicated as parentheses in my manuscript came out
as brackets. For instance, the sentence “Their kindly uncle was
terminally ill (they said they didn’t know it then) but his
nephews and nieces just went on their merry ways” came out as
“Their kindly uncle was terminally ill [they said they didn’t
know it then] but his nephews and nieces just went on their merry
ways.”
I would like to clarify that in
that column, the correct punctuation for all of the five bracketed
parentheticals that I gave as examples should have been
parentheses instead; that is, (…) and not […]. I suspect that
the error cropped up because in the typography used for my column,
9.3 points Giovanni book, brackets somewhat resemble parentheses. In
small fonts the difference between them is slight, so it’s
possible that a proofreader with tired eyes might have concluded
that the parentheses in my manuscript were meant to be brackets.
I am thus taking this opportunity
to emphasize that in American English, parentheses and brackets have
entirely different functions. As I have previously discussed,
parentheses—sometimes called “round brackets”—are meant to
convey to the reader that (1) the idea in the parenthetical isn’t
really crucial to the sentence, and that (2) the writer doesn’t
attach as much importance to the qualifying idea as he would when he
sets them off with double dashes instead.
On the other hand,
brackets—also known as “square brackets”—are for more
specialized uses, particularly for (1) inserting information or
authorial comment into direct quotations, (2) inserting translations
of quoted statements said in another language, (3) citing errors
within quoted statements, and (4) setting off a parenthetical
that’s already set off by parentheses in the sentence.
Precisely when is bracket usage 1
called for? Assume that we are quoting verbatim a passage from
Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quijote in reference to Dulcinea, his
imagined Empress of La Mancha. However, the passage uses only
pronouns to refer to Dulcinea, and we know that it isn’t
permissible to alter exact quotes from a literary work. We then have
to use brackets to insert information identifying Dulcinea for our
readers: “‘If I were to show her [Dulcinea, his imagined Empress
of La Mancha] to you,’ answered Don Quijote, ‘what merit would
there be in acknowledging a truth so manifest to all? The important
point is that you should believe, confess, affirm, swear, and defend
it without setting eyes on her.’”
As for bracket usage 2, a
publication in a particular language, say English, will need
brackets to insert translations of quoted statements said in another
language, say Tagalog, as in the following passage from a business
magazine: “‘Hindi lang kulang, kapos na kapos talaga [It’s
been not only short but way, way below our needs],’ she says of
the family’s finances.’”
Bracket usage 3 is called for
when we have to cite errors in quoted statements, as in this
example: “Our confused physics teacher said, ‘While eating an
apple in a bathtub, Isaac Newton [by traditional accounts it was
actually Archimedes] shouted “Eureka!” when he discovered the
basic principle of hydrostatics.’”
Finally, we may need to take
recourse to bracket usage 4 to set off a parenthetical that’s
already set off by parentheses, as in this example: “The life of
Marcus Tullius Cicero (who wrote three major philosophical studies
[On the Orator, On the Republic, and On the Laws] at a time that he
still couldn’t engage in politics) coincided with the decline and
fall of the Roman Republic.” Such usage isn’t a pretty sight,
but there are times when scholarly exactitude demands it.
j8carillo@yahoo.com
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