NIGI
Senior Member
British English
- May 1, 2013
- #1
Hello everyone,
In BrEng and AmEng, what is the rule for brackets and the spacing between them when their are two sets.
(.......) (.......), and so on.
or
(.......)(........), and so on.
Many thanks everyone.
ewie
Senior Member
Manchester
English English
- May 1, 2013
- #2
I'm having difficulty imagining a situation where I'd need to do that, Nigi. Could you give us a sample sentence?
NIGI
Senior Member
British English
- May 1, 2013
- #3
The substrates were then placed into a mass-spectrometer (calibrated according to the literature)(see section 4.5).
I know there are ways to avoid having two sets of brackets, but I ask because I read a lot of medical papers where there is a high instance of this occurring due to things like units, chemical names, references, etc., so would like to be sure.
Many thanks.
E
Egmont
Senior Member
Massachusetts, U.S.
English - U.S.
- May 1, 2013
- #4
We call them parentheses (one is a parenthesis) in AE. To us, brackets are [ ] (square brackets), { } (curly brackets) and < > (angle brackets).
I would leave a space between them, just as I would leave a space between an opening parenthesis and the word before it or between a closing parenthesis and the word after it.
ewie
Senior Member
Manchester
English English
- May 1, 2013
- #5
NIGI said:
The substrates were then placed into a mass-spectrometer (calibrated according to the literature)(see section 4.5).
I'd definitely leave a space too.
(They're 'correctly' called parentheses in BrE too, Eg, but commonly called brackets, whereas [] are square brackets)
JustKate
Senior Member
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
English - US
- May 1, 2013
- #6
Unless I was following a very rigid style that required that certain specific things must be set off by parentheses no matter what (I've seen some legal writing and I think some academic writing that does this), I simply would not use parentheses this way. I'd do almost anything to avoid it, really. But since NIGI's document is one that has such requirements, I agree that there should be a space between the two sets of parentheses.
Last edited:
natkretep
Moderato con anima (English Only)
Singapore
English (Singapore/UK), basic Chinese
- May 2, 2013
- #7
ewie said:
(They're 'correctly' called parentheses in BrE too, Eg, but commonly called brackets, whereas [] are square brackets
They are often called round brackets in BrE if it's necessary to distinguish them from square or curly or angle brackets. (Parenthesis is such a posh word with four syllables!)
But yes, insert a space, as others have said.
Wordsmyth
Senior Member
Location: Mostly SW France
Native language: English (BrE)
- May 2, 2013
- #8
.
I'd also leave a space, but it wouldn't bother me to see it written without.
ewie said:
[...] They're 'correctly' called parentheses in BrE too, Eg, but commonly called brackets, [...]
... and even 'correctly' called brackets : see Oxford definitions for
and
parentheses (def.1, plural).
Egmont said:
We call them parentheses (one is a parenthesis) in AE. [...]
I usually call them brackets, to avoid confusion with the other meaning of parenthesis (def.1): "a word or phrase inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage [...], in writing usually marked off by brackets, dashes, or commas" (Oxford). I don't remember ever coming across the singular parenthesis being used for one of a pair of parentheses.
Kate, in another thread recently I said I was glad that you'd incuded a parenthesis. I meant the qualifying comment you'd put in brackets. I hope you didn't think I meant just one of your brackets!
Ws
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