| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| PARENTHESES |
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| (the singular is parenthesis) are the punctuation marks we use to set off explanatory or other additional material not needed in the main sentence. Stylistically, parentheses are a way of setting off an aside in a syntactic structure. Paired dashes can do this too—they’re the most vigorous of such marks—and parentheses are a bit stronger than paired commas for a similar purpose. Conventionally parentheses are also used to set off numbers, as in (1), (2), etc.; to repeat and confirm a number or give an abbreviation in a text, as in There were fifteen hundred three (1,503) applicants and The agency was the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA); and to indicate alternative possibilities, as in forms to be filled out: Fill in name(s) of occupant(s) of this address. | 1 |
| Conventional combinations of parentheses and other marks of punctuation are these: a full sentence within parentheses but not within another sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period or other terminal mark, all placed within the parentheses; inside a sentence, the materials within parentheses need not be capitalized nor have end punctuation within them but may include a question mark or an exclamation point; abbreviations within parentheses may end with a period; within a sentence, punctuation will go not immediately before a parenthetical insertion but directly after the final parenthesis mark, as in He gave his name (grudgingly), but he refused to give his address; and a parenthetical remark within parentheses will be surrounded by square brackets, not by a second set of parentheses (in mathematical expressions, the reverse is true: material already containing parentheses will be enclosed by square brackets, which in turn may be enclosed by braces). See also BRACES; BRACKETS. | 2 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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