Parentheses Conundrum 1

[DrB0b]

Ive been using parentheses for a long time and recently have grown not so sure of the correct usage. Such things as punctuation, spacing/indentation, capitalization, and placement just don't seem to mesh. Hopefully someone can shed a light on some correctitude(technical term) of the way a sentence should be managed. (Is there a space between the word and "(", a space between the first "(" and the inside word?) Is the last use of it even correct or not? Should the punctuation go inside or out?

This link shows some things but use of word like "might be appropriate" tend to make me skeptical of the source. I Googled (how is this not a technical dictionary word yet, come on word processors) around for a bit to not find anything conclusive.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/parentheses.htm

Nothing to punctual (see what I did there?!?), just curious how I made it with A's in my collegiate English classes without this "correct" knowledge.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> This link shows some things but use of word like "might be appropriate" tend to make me skeptical of the source.
I've found

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

to be an excellent reference site. Appropriateness is not based on any grammar or syntax rules. Punctuation inside parenthesis may or may not be appropriate based on what is said inside the parenthesis and on the writer's intentions.

==> (Is there a space between the word and "(",
Yes.
==> a space between the first "(" and the inside word?)
No.

==> Is the last use of it even correct or not?
I do not think so, but only you know for sure. The purpose of parenthesis is to add some parenthetical comment, but purposely not draw much attention to it. It's an aside. Parenthesis should not be used in lieu of "for example", unless you really don't care about the examples, or in your case, you really don't care if the questions are answered.

==> Should the punctuation go inside or out?
Punctuation should be placed inside the parenthesis if the text inside the parenthesis calls for punctuation, such as a question or exclamation. Punctuation inside parenthesis applies only to that inside the parenthesis, and should be the same if the parenthesis were removed.

==> on some correctitude(technical term)
Technical term? Yes. Proper application of term? Not so much.

==> Nothing to punctual
I hope the timing of my response is satisfactory.


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[DrB0b]

==> a space between the first "(" and the inside word?)
Just seems cluttered to me when there is no space

==> on some correctitude(technical term)
Yea I will admit, I botched the sentence. Should edit before posting.....

==> Nothing to punctual
Excellent timing as always

I was unaware, before Googling and here, that there was a loss of emphasis via the parentheses. That makes understanding the utilization a bit better.

==> ...sentence should be managed. (Is there a space between the word and "(", a space between the first "(" and the inside word?) Is the last use of it even correct...
The start of the parenthetical part seems like it needs a punctuation mark outside as well. Just seems out of place and annoying space hog. I understand that it doesn't need double punctuation but just seems weird.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with it seeming to needing punctuation in front of the first parenthesis. That to me would be weird.

With regard to looking out of place and being a space hog, I do agree with you there. It's completely unnecessary to use it in that sentence and (as you rightly point out), it looks wrong.

Andy
---------------------------------
Zebracorn: 50% Zebra, 50% Unicorn = 100% Real.

http://lessthandot.com

 

[IPGuru]

I am not 100% certain on the riles for punctuation in parentheses but as I understand them they are used to insert a side comment into a sentence such that there removal should not make any difference to the underlying sentence.

as such i would tend to treat the contents of the parentheses as a totally separate sentence & punctuate accordingly.

The most important thing (To me anyway.) is to keep this as a simple as possible.

Computers are like Air conditioners:-
Both stop working when you open Windows

 

[DrB0b]

The most important thing (To me anyway.) is to keep this as a simple as possible.

If I'm following the article correctly, the above isnt necessarily correct because the punctuation serves no purpose such as a "!" or "?" would.

I do agree with the part of your post that states:

I understand them they are used to insert a side comment into a sentence such that there removal should not make any difference to the underlying sentence.

Where as the omission of the parenthesesed portion will not effect the sentence. But, isn't that basically what a comma can do?

The most important thing (To me anyway.) is to keep this as a simple as possible.
The most important thing, to me anyway, is to keep this as a simple as possible.

The only thing different should be lack of emphasis as originally stated????

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> as such i would tend to treat the contents of the parentheses as a totally separate sentence & punctuate accordingly.
I agree, but to be treated and punctuated as a separate sentence, it must actually be a sentence. "To me anyway" is not a sentence (it has no verb); therefore, it should not include a period.

==> But, isn't that basically what a comma can do?
Yes, with respect to parenthetical elements. You can use commas, dashes, or parenthesis to demarcate parenthetical elements.

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Good Luck
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[CajunCenturion]

I should point out that just because the parenthetical element could be a complete sentence doesn't mean that it must be treated as a complete sentence. In my preceding post, the parenthetical element, "it has no verb" could be a standalone sentence. If I were to treat it as such, that I must capitalize the first letter and include the period. If I don't treat it as a complete sentence (which I did not), then I would neither capitalize the first letter nor include the full stop.

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Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
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[IPGuru]

CC you are almost certainly correct with your dissection of my post.
I do not make any claims to be a great grammar expert.

if fact English is one of, if not the most grammatically complex human language.
Some "rules" of English actual have mode exceptions that cases that match!

Written English & Spoken English are also often quite different, what works well in speech often looks bad on paper & vice versa!

hence my general advise to keep it as simple as possible although care should also be taken to avoid ambiguity.

Computers are like Air conditioners:-
Both stop working when you open Windows

 

[BadBigBen]

I would almost conjecture to say that English, is one of the more easiest languages to learn, including the grammar of the written word...

example:

the definitive article in English is "the".

the definitive articles in German are "der, die, das, dem, des, den"

e.g. the book - das Buch , the woman - die Frau (f), the man - der Mann (m)...

now I can usually tell, English speakers that speak German, by their usage of the definitive article, because they almost always choose the wrong one, as they cannot differentiate between masculine, feminine and neuter demonstratives...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Annihilannic]

Especially because in German they seem to bear little relation to the word they're describing. ;-)

I couldn't put it better myself...

Annihilannic
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[IPGuru]

BigBadBen Are you a natural English Speaker of is it your second language?

English is generally considered a difficult Lagrange to master because of its many idiosyncrasies & inconsistencies.

Although learning it a basic level is probably not to hard, just take a look at the examples of broken English posted in many forums.

This is not an attack on those posters because there English is far better than my French, Spanish, German or whatever, to a degree it even shows the strength of English that even with a grammatically broken sentence it is still possible to get the meaning

Computers are like Air conditioners:-
Both stop working when you open Windows

 

[IPGuru]

as a follow on to the last post I would also say that as an English person our lazinesses in learning a second or third language is a poor show compared to the rest of Europe.


Computers are like Air conditioners:-
Both stop working when you open Windows

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> I would almost conjecture to say that English, is one of the more easiest languages to learn, including the grammar of the written word...
That depends entirely on which English you choose to learn.


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Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. - Plato

 

[DansDadUK]

I would also say that as an English person our lazinesses in learning a second or third language is a poor show compared to the rest of Europe

I agree, although "the rest of Europe" tends to choose English as a second language, whilst in the UK we have a choice of numerous other 'second languages', so harder to make the choice, and also to keep up with the chosen language (e.g. knowing French whilst visiting Germany, or Italy, is possibly less useful than speaking English).

Over the years I've studied and/or learnt bits of French, Spanish, Arabic & Russian - but can't remember much of any of them now, as I've not had occasion to use any of them for a long time.

 

[BadBigBen]

@Annihilannic,

nice link there... Thank you for that...

@IPGuru,

>> Are you a natural English Speaker of is it your second language?
English is my second language, I am a native speaker of German (mother tongue), but I was forced, more or less, to speak, read and write in English, when I was 12 yrs. old (step-dad being an American Soldier, we moved from Germany to the US)...

>> Although learning it a basic level is probably not to hard, just take a look at the examples of broken English posted in many forums.
I would more or less contribute this to many things, one being the one you listed, the other being just plain lazyness on the OPs side...

@CC

>> That depends entirely on which English you choose to learn.
English, is just a lower dialect of German, with a bit of French and Latin strewn in... ;-)

@DansDadUK,

>>> I agree, although "the rest of Europe" tends to choose English as a second language, whilst in the UK we have a choice of numerous other 'second languages'
During my school days, Germany was still an occupied country, where the English, French and Russians mainly dictated what secondary language was part of the curriculum... Both the English and American sector, you had British English as secondary language, in the state of Saarland, it was French, and the ex-DDR one learned Russian... Now Germany has three levels of schools, in the highest level you could choose more languages besides the mandatory English/French and Latin...

In American High School, I also took a course in Spanish, as I wanted to deepen my Spanish that I had learned in El Paso Texas, basically there I picked up the curse words... ;-)


PS: Correction to the post I had written earlier:

is one of the more easiest languages to learn

should be

is one of the most easiest of languages to learn


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Annihilannic]

You can't really say "most easiest". You could perhaps say "most easy" but it sounds wrong. Just "easiest" will suffice.

Or instead of "more easiest", you could just say "easier", but the meaning is different.

Annihilannic
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[IPGuru]

Ben
As German is your first language I have to congratulate on the quality of your written English, it puts many native English speakers to shame (Mine is certainly less than perfect so I am having to take great care in this particular thread).

others have pointed out that most easiest/ more easiest is grammatically incorrect but that is fairly minor compared to some examples I have seen.

my personal bugbear in written English is the incorrect usage of There,Their & the're as well as your and you're. Although the word sound the same if find they slow down my reading process when used incorrectly, probably because my brain now has to perform an extra task to translate them into the correct context.

Computers are like Air conditioners:-
Both stop working when you open Windows

 

[BadBigBen]

Annihilannic,

you are correct, as to the adjective "easy" - "easier"(comparative) - "easiest"(superlative)... more/most just can't be used with "easy" and I should have dropped it completely, and reworded that sentence. what I was attempting to get across was that from some of the easiest languages to learn, that English is one of the easiest of the bunch...

IPGuru,

I know the feeling about the conundrums in the usage of "there, their and they're" & "your and you're"... just like the "then and than" misuse... just makes me shudder thinking about it...

------------------------

now I have it from an official source, that Japanese is probably the most difficult language to learn...

Language Learning Difficulty for English Speakers

http://web.archive.org/web/20071014...otw/months/november/learningExpectations.html

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[flapeyre]

Three Simple Rules:

Space before opening parenthesis.
NO space after opening parenthesis, or before closing parenthesis.
One space after closing parenthesis unless a punctuation mark immediately follows it, in which case no space.

-- Francis
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to the office.
--Robert Frost