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Course: Grammar > Unit 7
Lesson 3: Formatting stylesParentheses
Parentheses set off extra information (such as a writer's remarks, an interruption, or a reference) from the rest of a sentence. Learn how to use them in this video!
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- How would you punctuate an aside within an aside?
For instance, "Tim (Mark's blue-haired brother [don't get me started about the hair]) chased Patty's dog down the street."
Am I correct in believing that you use brackets within your parenthetical phrase?(16 votes)- This works better:
Tim, Mark's blue-haired brother (don't get me started about the hair), ...
orTim, Mark's blue-haired brother - don't get me started about the hair -...
(37 votes)
- At, Could you not just use commas? 2:21
The cookie, which was still warm, was delicious.
(14 votes)- I would say that you could. It would seemingly fall under the comma rule that one of my former instructors called the parenthetical element, where you should/could insert commas where parentheses would otherwise be.(5 votes)
- I have learned from a novel that parenthesis are for "extra information"(7 votes)
- They work well that way, don't they?(7 votes)
- Can't parentheses also represent the following?
(s)he
What is this called?(8 votes) - Can we use parenthesis in a time like this....I had ice cream ( chocolate soft serve )at the Carnival! Or is this a good time to use parenthesis.....I had my favorite ice cream ( chocolate soft serve) at the Carnival! Let me know wat won 1st or 2nd or none?(4 votes)
- I'd just simplify it by moving "ice cream" behind the adjectives. "I had chocolate soft serve ice cream at the carnival."(8 votes)
- Why can't you just use commas? Using the example in the video: "The cookie, which was still warm, was delicious." Or with dashes, "The cookie - which was still warm - was delicious."(3 votes)
- The joy of English is its flexibility. So long as you communicate clearly, there are many ways to write things. BUT, because of the many ways that there are to WRITE things, we all have to learn the many ways to READ them.(7 votes)
- David's back Lets go!!(2 votes)
- David left this course early in 2017. He has been back only a couple of times to add a few lessons (one of those in 2021). What you hear in these lessons is NOT him performing for us now, but stuff he pre-recorded many years ago. Wasn't he wonderful?(6 votes)
- when showing additional information, when would you use parentheses and when would you use two commas?(3 votes)
- It depends on if the additional information stands "in appositive" to something (in which case, use commas), or if what you want to say could well stand without it.
For example, if you don't know who Joe is, I might use the appositive. "Joe, my childhood friend, is now 80 years old." Compare that to "Joe (who is now the President of the United States) is 80 years old.(3 votes)
- Just for a fact there are many types of parentheses such as...
[] {} ()
but these are the main ones which are on a computer(2 votes)- In English, these symbols are referred to differently based on their shapes. The round ones () are called parentheses, while the square ones [] are often referred to as brackets. The curly ones {} are usually called braces or curly brackets. However, the terminology can vary depending on the context or the region. For example, in British English, the term "brackets" is commonly used to refer to what Americans call "parentheses". So, while they're not exactly the same, the terms can sometimes be used interchangeably depending on the situation.(4 votes)
- What's the difference between the comma and the parentheses in the case of interuppting in the middle of a sentence?
example:
Harry Potter, a former Hogwarts student, picked up his wand.
Harry Potter (a former Hogwarts student) picked up his wand.
Are they pretty much the same or are there cases where you should use one and not the other?(2 votes)- OK, I'll try.
In your first example (the one with commas), the construction is what is known as an appositive. There's a lesson on those in this course. I suggest you access it.
Your second example (with the parentheses) is not wrong, but the punctuation you have chosen is too strong for what you are trying to express. An appositive, set off by mere commas, reads more easily.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hey grammarians, hey Paige. - [Voiceover] Hi David. - [Voiceover] So today, we're
gonna talk about parentheses. So, before we get into
what parentheses do, I would like to talk very
briefly about the word origin of parentheses or parenthesis,
- [Voiceover] Okay. because it comes from Greek,
so para means besides, and thesis means placing, right? So it's placed beside, approximately, and how we use parentheses is we kinda put 'em to the side for little, what are called asides in
writing, little interruptions. So let's lay out the
functions of parentheses. And I should say, the singular form of parentheses is parenthesis. That's just one of these. Two of 'em is parentheses, like so. So Paige, what is a parenthesis,
and what does it do? - [Voiceover] So a parenthesis
is a piece of punctuation that has kind of a lot
of different functions. It can indicate remarks
by the writer of a text. - [Voiceover] Okay. - [Voiceover] Or specify a
definition or a reference. It can also show
interruptions by an audience, but overall, the parenthesis separates a piece of technically
unnecessary information, or what we called an aside,
from the rest of the sentence. - [Voiceover] So it separates
inessential information. - [Voiceover] Right, you can take out what's in the parentheses, and the sentence will still make sense. - [Voiceover] All right, so
let's take these one at a time. So here we've got something like, the cookie, which was
still warm, was delicious. Now we could, conceivably, take that out of the sentence, right? 'Cause the sentence is basically,
the cookie was delicious. But if we wanted to add an additional remark by a writer, which is whoever ate
the cookie, namely me, we would put in this parenthetical remark. - [Voiceover] Right, it's
some extra information. - [Voiceover] And when
I say parenthetical, I'm talking about this little aside here. That's what I mean by a parenthetical. So this is what's called
a parenthetical aside. So the second way in
which you use parentheses is to specify a definition or reference. So let's say I wanted to quote Paige's as yet unwritten autobiography. - [Voiceover] Okay. - [Voiceover] So, what I'm doing here is I'm using this parenthetical aside to cite where in her book she said, "Oh no, a tiger!" So let's say this is, what I'm doing here, this sentence is like an excerpt from some essay that I'm writing about Paige's life and times, which I've italicized
here because it is a book. - [Voiceover] Right. - [Voiceover] So what I'm
doin' here is I have the quote, and then, in order to say where
that reference comes from, I give the author's last name, the name of the book, and then p. 38, and all of that is inside
parentheses, like so. That's the second use of the parenthesis. So let's say you're taking
down a transcript of a speech. You're typing up someone's speech, and they start coughing, and it interrupts the way they're giving a speech. Let's say I was trying
to render the sentence, "Furthermore, (coughs) I
must firmly state that." - [Voiceover] Right, so you
can include the coughing in the sentence
- [Voiceover] Right. when you're writing it
down or transcribing it. Like, if we think this is
important enough to note, we can just sort of say, voop, voop, yup, coughing happened here. - [Voiceover] I see. So those are the uses of the parenthesis. You can indicate remarks by the writer, as in our first example, or specify a definition or a reference, which we did here with
the reference to my book, or you can show an interruption in speech. That's it! - [Voiceover] Sweet! So what happened with that tiger? - [Voiceover] That's a long story. - [Voiceover] All right,
we'll talk about that later. You can learn anything. Dave out. - [Voiceover] Paige out.